China rising (2)

“Dongcheng Park is at the forefront in the development of both cultural creativity and high-technology industries.”

It was a sweltering 36 degrees centigrade in Beijing—hotter than in Manila—when we began our 2018 Silk Road Rediscovery Media Tour on Wednesday, June 27, with a visit to Beijing Evolutionary Robot Technology Co. or Evolver, in Haidian District.

The company was established only three years ago—in 2015—and yet has accomplished much. It belongs to the first batch of high-tech enterprises doing research on intelligent service robots in China. Evolver’s research group come from prestigious academic institutions, including Beihang University, and have worked for various high-tech firms, such as Intel Corporation. It has more than 300 personnel, half of whom are engaged in research.

Evolver is a pioneer high-tech enterprise that specializes in intelligent domestic service robots. It describes its mission is to “develop world-class intelligent domestic robots.”

We were introduced to Fabo EO1 robot, the first generation of its robots that integrates artificial intelligence, autonomous navigation, voice interaction, remote control and other cutting-edge technologies. It is specifically designed for children 4 to 12 years old, the aged and other people who need to be accompanied. With a unique robot emotion engine designed by Evolver, numerous human characteristics and behavior are embedded into Fabo, including curiosity, optimism, depression, hunger pangs and attention-seeking. This makes the robots great companions for people. The robot can be utilized for child education, games, video chats, and mobile projection, among others.

Our next stop was Leyard Optoelectronic Co., a transnational corporation consisting of over 50 domestic and foreign enterprises. It focuses on four sectors, namely light emitting diodes (LED) displays (it is No. 1 in the world), urban landscape lighting (the biggest in China), culture and technology integration and virtual reality. Among its key achievements is the acoustic, lighting and electrical systems in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

After a sumptuous lunch, we motored to Zhongguancun in western Beijing, reputed as China’s “Silicon Valley”. We visited the Zhongguancun Science Park, a technology and innovation center occupying a vast area of nearly 5 million hectares.

Dongcheng Park, one of the ten sub-parks in the Zhongguancun National Innovation Demonstration Zone, opened officially in September 2006. It occupies a total area of 290 hectares and is composed of four major industry clusters; intellectual property; digital content; culture, tourism and leisure; and traditional Chinese medicine science and culture.

There are over 1,700 locators in the park, making it a gathering place for leading cultural creative companies in Beijing.

“Evolver’s research group come from prestigious academic institutions.”

Dongcheng Park is at the forefront in the development of both cultural creativity and high-technology industries in Beijing and all over China. It benefits from its excellent location and environmental policy.

It also houses the Gehua Cultural Creative Industry Centre—the mainstay of Beijing’s cultural creative industries and the Copyright Trading Centre, which has won peer acclaim both at home and abroad for its convenient and efficient trading system and overall excellent services.

Next in our first-day itinerary in Beijing was a visit to the Olympic Park Center. It is here where the Beijing National Stadium, nicknamed “Bird’s Nest” because of its nest-like skeletal structure, is located. As the centerpiece of the 2008 Summer Olympics, the stadium hosted both the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the athletics competition in the Olympics.

While we did not get to see the inside of the “Bird’s Nest”, we actually saw for ourselves the interior of the National Aquatics Center, or the Water Cube, site of the swimming and diving competitions in the 2008 Summer Games. The Water Cube, which will be the main competition site of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, is open to public for swimming lessons and local competitions.

Our last stop for the day was Radio Beijing International, which commenced operations in 2004. As China’s only multilingual radio station with distinct local features, it takes pride in opening a window on Beijing to the world by providing diversified, insightful and up-to-date news coverage and programming to Beijing’s foreign community, Chinese professionals with multicultural backgrounds, Beijing residents who want to hone their foreign language skills and overseas Chinese who want to know more about the latest developments in the mainland.

Our guide told us that Radio Beijing International always strives to expand its reach as it is the first channel to offer an integrated platform of traditional and new media by launching an online radio station in 2008 with multilingual tools and multiple platforms. In the last 10 years, it has expanded its new media services on all the emerging social media platforms such as Weibo, WeChat and mobile phone apps. (Next: Days 2&3)