(Photo: Du Aoran/People's Daily app)
Beijing (People's Daily) - The 2019 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Beijing Symposium began on Friday in Beijing. Several prominent professors from MIT were invited to share their insights on how modern lifestyles are influenced by AI, biotech and fintech.
Through this symposium, prominent industry experts and innovative enterprises in China and the United States will provide feasible solutions for the building of "smart city".
Gang Chen, the head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, discussed Advanced Functional Fabrics in his keynote speech “Emerging Technologies for Smart Cities”.
Recent breakthroughs in fiber materials and manufacturing processes will soon allow us to design and wear fabrics that see, hear, sense, communicate, store and convert energy, regulate temperature, monitor health and change color. This is Advanced Functional Fabrics, which will enable a domestic manufacturing-based revolution by transforming traditional fibers, yarns, and fabrics into highly sophisticated, integrated and networked products and systems.
Rafi Segal (Photo: Z-Park)
Rafi Segal, Associate Professor in Construction Management at MIT, presented past and ongoing work that explores how urban space and architecture can address emerging social trends and environment changes, utilizing technologies, physical planning and design strategies to promote adaptability and flexibility through interventions across multiple scales of the urban environment.
Long Ju, Assistant Professor of Physics at MIT, said the realization of smart city relies on the Internet of Things, in which various types of sensors collect and exchange information. He discussed the application of optical detectors in environment monitoring, security, as well as medical and healthcare.
The symposium recognized that Beijing has become another focus in the field of global venture capital investment with Chinese science and technology gaining its momentum. Represented by the science and technology industry cluster in Zhongguancun, Chinese sci-tech companies are growing into a powerful innovation force which has attracted global attention.
