Virtual world will give North East companies global opportunities

Oct 29 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

IT has received more than £1m in investment, will support 76 companies and has been tipped to create 100 jobs - but it will not be built with bricks and mortar.

A new pilot project which could spawn the latest in the region’s ever-growing stable of creative hubs has been launched in the virtual world.

Through flourishing assets such as Newcastle’s thriving Ouseburn area, Sunderland’s Software City project and Teesside’s Institute of Digital Innovation, the region has a network of creative epicentres.

However, the latest centre – which will cater for design firms – will be developed as a 3D virtual world giving North East companies access to global business opportunities and the chance to carry out complex research and development tasks remotely.

The three-year NDC District project is the product of experts at Teesside University’s Centre for Design in the Digital Economy (DLab) and the Northern Design Centre innovation connector investment plan.

The project has also been backed by £515,000 from the European Union’s ERDF Competitiveness Programme through One North East and £565,000 from Teesside University.

The virtual Northern Design Centre and surrounding business park with have the potential to grow and support design ventures and SMEs.

It will also use groundbreaking digital technology to remove many of the physical, service, logistics, cost or communication limits that can be barriers to growth in the outside world.

According to DLab, the technology behind the NDC District is far more advanced than popular socially-driven phenomenon Second Life, allowing more users to collaborate in particular areas and providing much more of a business-orientated environment.

The NDC District will be piloted as part of DLab’s ambitious online city project which goes live next month and has the capacity to house thousands of businesses, who can lease land from around £1,000-a-year.

The business-to-business community is driven by some of the most advanced gaming technology and could create hundreds of jobs in the region as international tenants move in.

DLab director Professor Brian Wilson said: “Users will inhabit a 3D environment populated with office buildings, exhibitions, training resources, conferencing and meeting areas.

“Users will appear as ‘avatars’ – representative virtual human forms.

“The creation of business premises and technical support of interactive ‘real-time’ services through 3D online facilities will allow businesses to present their capabilities and resources to the market place, and attract market and investment engagement in a completely new way.”

The clustering presence of many complementary enterprises in one location is seen as paralleling previous transformations in the design sector.

One North East design senior specialist Ben Strutt said: “The new mass participation online economy is already underway on a global stage.

“Use of design processes, services and technologies enable critical bridges to be built between early ideas, research, development, and the market place.”

“We need to ensure North East companies have the knowledge, skill and operational presence to exploit new forms of online commerce and become competitive pioneers of a virtual-3D online business environment.”