Shanghai plans to hold its first World Design Cities Conference from Sept 15 to 18. The event is expected to promote cooperation and exchanges among international design sectors and to make the city's creative design industries more creative, more innovative, more competitive and more influential, Zhang Wei, deputy mayor of Shanghai, announced at a news conference.

With the theme "Design Beyond Borders Diversity and Togetherness", the conference is designed to show the cross-border integration, innovations and trends in the design industry, and to show Shanghai's determination to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and share wisdom, platforms, opportunities and the future with global creative cities.

Shanghai joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a "City of Design" in 2010. Since then, the city's creative design industry has developed rapidly. And a batch of competitive professional design institutions, noted design experts, and influential design brands have sprung up. As the city looks to develop into a global design hub, an international and professional platform is needed to bring together global experts and scholars to discuss the industry’s development, which is the main reason for holding the conference.

The event will include an opening ceremony, two summits, two exhibitions and over 50 forums and design activities.

The forums cover varied topics such as industrial, architectural, fashion, digital and service design. Leading figures in those sectors from home and abroad including French designer Philippe Patrick Starck, Wu Guanghui, the chief designer of China's home-made C919 aircraft, and Richard Yu, Huawei's head of consumer business, have been invited to deliver keynote speeches. Forums about auto design, brand design, advertisement design, youth creativity, and design education will also be held.

Famous designers and entrepreneurs such as Thomas Heatherwick, Alessandro Michele, and Nicolas Hieronimus will give online speeches, and an overseas exhibition will also be launched in downtown Paris to interact with big local events such as Paris Design Week 2022, Milan Fashion Week, and Bonjour Brand.

General views of 43 cities from all over the world will be presented through art installations at the main exhibition in Shanghai, which is one of Shanghai's goals of promoting itself as a global design hub.

The main exhibition will cover five themes including innovations in the design industry, the construction of vigorous urban spaces, the optimization of public services, the creation of a better life, and brand building. There will also be exhibition areas designated especially for France and Italy.

The event will cover 20,000 square meters with 110 brand exhibitors and more than 300 product lines, with 20 percent of them being overseas brands.

A new product release will be launched to display design works selected for the "Shanghai Design 100". The works are selected from 2,128 entries submitted by 1,416 design teams in 18 countries. The works are currently valued at 42.4 billion yuan ($6.63 billion), with a predicted total economic value of 398.7 billion yuan after final valuations. Companies such as MicroPort will also hold special release events.

An innovation award for cutting-edge designs will be given in three categories, which are the award for design contribution, the award for design innovation, and the award for future innovation. The award is expected to be a new name card for Shanghai's design sector.

The think tank Global Designer 100 has been established, which consists of famous designers, deans of design academies, and leaders of top design companies, to promote cross-border integration and international cooperation.

An initiative in the name of Shanghai, a global design hub, is expected to be proposed to introduce the city's goal and intentions for global cooperation.

A design carnival including 20-plus featured design activities is also scheduled to take place. New media platforms such as Tencent and TikTok will be invited to promote the event. The first city of design demonstration area will be inaugurated, and will showcase creative design industry projects and international cooperation projects.

A metaverse online exhibition will also be available for Chinese citizens, and they can book tickets on the official website of the conference.