WHAT QUALITIES DO WE VALUE
PDF 2025 DIA Announcement
PDF 2025 DIA Guidelines for participants
Design Intelligence
Design intelligence is the ability to apply design thinking and methodology to a wide range of challenges and opportunities.
Design Intelligence means more than just technical skills and knowledge; it also includes the ability to understand social, cultural, and economic contexts.
Design Intelligence is increasingly important in a rapidly changing world, where the ability to innovate and adapt to new challenges and opportunities is vital. Innovation, sustainability and social responsibility are just some of the qualities that designers should possess.
HOW DO WE ARRANGE THINGS
Group Classifications
The 2025 DIA Features two main groups: the Product Group and the Innovation Incubation Group.
Product Group:
Eligibility: Open to all enterprises, universities & colleges, institutions, and individuals.
Entry Requirements: Entries must either (1) be products launched within 2 years prior to the submission date, or (2) be unreleased prototypes with industrial feasibility
Categories: Cultural Innovation, Life Wisdom, Industrial Equipment, and Digital Economy.
Innovation Incubation Group:
Eligibility: Exclusively open to university-affiliated teams. Participants must submit either a valid student ID or a graduation certificate issued within the past 5 years.
Entry Requirements:Participants should be able to deliver a complete design proposal and a functional prototype by November 1, 2025.
Categories:
Enterprise Challenge Track: Represents enterprise-proposed challenges, centered around the real demands of enterprises.
“X” Track: Represents the open-topic challenge, encouraging young designers to explore unknown fields.
The DIA Committee reserves the right to adjust the group or category of entries.
Entry Categories
Product Group:
This Group consists of four categories, and participants are free to choose their own topics.
1.The Cultural Innovation category is open to products and services from the fields of cultural economics, including culture gifts, stationery, packaging, fashion accessories, tableware, furniture and lighting, social innovation and new cultural tourism economy, etc.
2.The Life Wisdom category recognizes the way we live as a driving force behind the ideas we create. This category is open to products and services from the fields of mordern consumer sector, including electronics and digital devices, household appliances, kitchen and bathroom essentials, smart home technology, elderly care products, maternal and child supplies, personal care items, pets supplies, toys and musical instruments, sports and leisure products, disaster prevention and protection products, application of new technologies and materials, etc.
3.The Industrial Equipment category looks at how production is evolving, and how new industries are emerging. This category includes is open to products and services from the fields of high-end equipment, including; transportation and logistics, medical equipment, construction equipment, agriculture and forestry equipment, military equipment, office equipment, green energy, robots and automation tools, etc.
4.The Digital Economy category is open to products and services that can make use of data intelligence. This category is open to digital products and services from the fields of the Internet economy, including spatial computing, smart cities, smart mobility, smart business, smart medical care, smart education, smart community, digital security, aerospace information, industrial internet, virtual reality products, etc.
Innovation Incubation Group:
Scenario Symbiosis·Emotional Empowerment: Innovative Design of Intelligent Agent Robots
Participants are required to design general-purpose humanoid or quadruped robots, with an electric rotary actuator as the core driving unit, completing functional definition, form, CMF (Color/Material/Finish), dynamic interaction, etc.
Application of Legged Mobile Robots in Smart Cultural Tourism Industry
Participants are required to design application plans for legged robots in the smart cultural tourism industry, analyzing their value, technical feasibility and operational logic, and providing demo data or simulation presentations.
Boundless Symbiosis·Future Interaction Lab
Participants are required to design multimodal interaction methods or product solutions based on Rokid AR hardware platform, exploring natural, efficient, and emotionally resonant symbiotic experiences.
Innovative Design for Brain-Computer Interface Application Scenarios
Participants are required to address the limitations of brain-machine interface (BCI) products in hardware design, interaction design, and scenario adaptability, expanding the scope of potential applications.
Innovative Design of a Multi-modal Interactive Health Companion Robot
Participants are required to design new forms and functional paradigms for in-home health companion robots through interdisciplinary robotics technology and innovative interaction models.
Co-creation with AI - Human-Machine Co-creation in Cultural Tourism / Intelligent Reconstruction of Retail Materials
Participants are required to give traditional culture a modern expression by using AI, and to address the need for scale production of retail creative ideas, constructing a new paradigm for human-machine collaboration.
X
No specific theme is set, young designers are encouraged to explore unknown fields.
WHAT IS THE TIMELINE
Timeline
* The public registration will close at 24:00 (UTC+8) on June 20, 2025. Registration is free of charge, and the DIA committee encourages all partcipants to complete their registration during the public registration period.
* Late Submissions: For those who miss the public registration period, additional administrative and evaluation fees apply as follows:
June 21 – July 20, 2025, 24:00 (Beijing Time): RMB 1,500 per entry.
July 21 – September 20, 2025, 24:00 (Beijing Time): RMB 3,000 per entry.
* No fees will be charged for expert nominated entries and entries from the Innovation Incubation Group throughout the process.
* Logistic fees and other expenses incurred in sending entries should be borne by applicants.
Product Group:
01 Public Registration
Deadline: Jun. 20, 2025
02 Additional Registration
Deadline: Sep. 20, 2025
03 Preliminary Evaluation
Jun. 25, 2025-Jul. 4, 2025
04 Shortlisted Entry Delivery
Sept. 1, 2025-Sept. 19, 2025
05 Second Evaluation
Sept. 26, 2025
06 Final Evaluation
Dec. 11, 2025
07 DIA Award Ceremony and DIA Exhibition
Dec. 12 2025
Innovation Incubation Group:
01 Public Registration
Deadline: Sep. 20, 2025
02 Preliminary Evaluation
Completed by October 31, 2025
03 Shortlisted Entry Delivery
Nov. 10–21, 2025
04 Second Evaluation
Late November 2025
05 Final Evaluation
Dec. 11, 2025
06 DIA Award Ceremony and DIA Exhibition
Dec. 12, 2025
07 Industrial Incubation
2026-2027
*In the event that the timeline needs to be adjusted due to special circumstances, DIA Committee will provide advance notice.
WHAT ARE THE PRIZES
Prizes
The 2025 DIA has established the Grand Award (1 winner with ¥ 1,000,000), open to entries from both the Product Group and Innovation Incubation Group.
For the Product Group:
·Gold Award (4 winners, ¥300,000/winner)
·Silver Award (8 winners, ¥150,000/winner)
·Bronze Award (10 winners, ¥100,000 per winner)
For the Innovation Incubation Group:
- For the “X” track, DIA sets up “Future Talents” (4 winners, ¥20,000/winner) and “Young Talents” (10 winners, ¥10,000/winner).
- For the enterprise challenge track, DIA sets up “Innovation Gold Award” (2 winners, ¥ 100,000/winner), “Innovation Silver Award” (6 winners, ¥50,000/winner) and “Innovation Bronze Award” (18 winners, ¥10,000/winner).
To encourage universities to actively respond to the enterprise proposed challenges and integrate them with daily teaching and research, the “Innovation Mentor Award” (6 awards, ¥40,000 each) is introduced to recognize university faculty who actively advance the synergy of industry, education, and innovation. At the same time, an “Outstanding Organizing Award” is established, and all mentors of the award-winning works in the enterprise challenge track are eligible to receive this award.
In addition, approximately 300 entries from both groups will be selected for Honorable Mention Awards (the exact number depends on evaluation results).
Grand Award
1 winner, RMB 1,000,000/winner |
Product Group Prize Pool:¥3,400,000 |
Innovation Incubation Group
Prize Pool:¥1,100,000 + Enterprise incubation fund |
Gold Award
4 winners, ¥300,000 per winner
Silver Award
8 winners, ¥150,000 per winner
Bronze Award
10 winners, ¥100,000 per winner
| Enterprise Challenge Track | “X” track |
Innovation Gold Award (2 winners, ¥ 100,000/winner)
Innovation Silver Award (6 winners, ¥ 50,000/winner)
Innovation Bronze Award (18 winners, ¥10,000/winner)
Innovation Mentor Award (6 awards, ¥40,000 each)
Outstanding Organizing Award (Open to all mentors of the award-winning works )
|
Future Talents (4 winners, ¥20,000/winner)
Young Talents (10 winners, ¥10,000/winner)
|
Honorable Mention Award
around 300 winners, the actual number is subject to the evaluation results
|
*All monetary awards are denominated in RMB pre-tax amounts. The actual disbursed amount will be subject to China's tax regulations and administrative procedures, with deductions for applicable taxes and production costs of trophies and award certificates.
*The Enterprise Incubation Fund, capitalized by participating enterprises, will serve as seed-round investment to support project implementation and industrial transformation.