Taobao Maker Festival kicks off in Hangzhou
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Taobao Maker Festival kicks off in Hangzhou on Thursday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
Whether it's imitation meat or Tang Dynasty costumes, merchants on Taobao, China's largest customer-to-customer site, are showing how to promote culture with technology.
Their creativity is best shown at the Taobao Maker Festival, a mega event that kicked off on Thursday to display a torrent of new designer goods on the marketplace.
According to Chris Tung, Alibaba's chief marketing officer and main organizer of the event, this year's gala will be the "longest, largest and most diverse"since its debut four years ago.
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Taobao Maker Festival kicks off in Hangzhou on Thursday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
"It is a place to showcase merchants' creativity and realize their dreams," Tung told a media briefing ahead of the gala's official opening. "It is also an unparalleled offline trade show where vendors share their concepts of designs and tell the stories of their entrepreneurship through products."
The event will run for two weeks starting Sept 12, which is a significant extension from last year's four days. It is staged at two venues: the Hangzhou Boiler Factory and the West Lake.
Alibaba said more than 1,000 unique products will be on display during the event, with categories including cultural heritage, high-tech, novel designs and street fashion.
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Taobao Maker Festival kicks off in Hangzhou on Thursday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
People can head to food stalls to have a taste of some 200 creative gourmet offerings, like Moutai-flavored ice-cream, hot pot lollipops and robotic arm-prepared tea and braised pork. Facial recognition technologies are widely applied to smooth the entire payment process.
New products include a vegan meat launched by Hong Kong social enterprise Green Monday, powered exoskeletons launched by C-Exoskeleton, a virtual-reality headset launched by HTC and simultaneous translation technology launched by iFlytek.
Visitors flocked to the Omnipork booth, a brand owned by Green Monday, where braised "meatballs" and hamburgers made from artificial meat were served. Its founder, David Yeung, was optimistic that the younger generation in China stands poised to embrace a new and healthier diet.
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Taobao Maker Festival kicks off in Hangzhou on Thursday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
"People are waking up to the fact that less intake of cholesterol is conducive to their health. Plus we are inventing new cuisines using the imitation meat. We believe the preservation of cultural heritage can be best achieved through technology," he said.
Other sci-fi-like scenes at the fair include rapid-fire 3D printing technology and wearable tech that helps workers lift heavy loads.
Besides this peek into the future, there are certain areas dedicated to crossovers and cultural heritages that take guests back to the past. These include a series of "haute couture traditional Han-style" clothing and building blocks that recreate traditional Chinese architecture.
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Taobao Maker Festival kicks off in Hangzhou on Thursday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
Tung said the festival carries the essence of the Taobao platform, which gives young Chinese people an avenue to freely express themselves and form a community with likeminded friends.
Jia Jinkai, who runs two toy studios-Litor's Works and W36 Toyland-on Taobao, agreed, saying the company's core consumers are women aged 25-40, who have the financial leeway to purchase palm-sized toys priced 500-900 yuan.
He said the designs are designed to address people's psychological need to get comfort and be pampered in an increasingly competitive environment.
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Taobao Maker Festival kicks off in Hangzhou on Thursday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
"The designer toy market is set to take off quickly because we are not just selling toys – it's the emotional resonation that truly matters," Jia said.
"By producing this festival, we have been amazed by the creativity of the young makers, and we want the whole world to see it. This is the future of China, and this could be the future of the world," said Tung.
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Taobao Maker Festival kicks off in Hangzhou on Thursday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
