Professionals from the fashion and textile industry as well as game creators accepted KEPA’s and CERTH’s invitation to participate in the focus groups, held by the two partners of the “i-Game” project at the premises of Hellenic Design Centre in Thessaloniki, 16 and 17 October 2024.
CERTH, lead partner of the project “i-Game, Building a community for the co-creation of games with high impact on innovation, sustainability, social cohesion, and growth” together with KEPA, organized two focus groups under the theme “Games at the service of fashion” with the aim of cross-sectoral knowledge exchange, exploring opportunities for collaboration between fashion designers, game developers and creators of serious games, utilizing cutting-edge technologies and co-design processes, that this project provides through its open source digital platform, which has already started to be developed.
The focus group meetings were held in the context of conducting primary research to examine the needs and challenges faced by professionals in these fields, to present the digital platform of the “i-Game” project, to explore the use of the platform by the fashion designers and the game creators, by incorporating it into their product design, as well as correlating co-design with issues of inclusion and social impact.
The next steps in the co-design process of this digital tool include the simulation of the platform’s operation, seeking to capture the main characteristics and behaviors of the selected system, for the partners responsible for its development, to achieve a more improved version of this application that will meet the needs of the interested parties.
The platform simulation (co-creation workshops) is expected to be implemented within spring of 2025, as part of the wider digital development and innovation actions, aimed at supporting the communities of the creative and cultural industries. By promoting innovation and experimentation, the participants, through an interactive experience, will have the opportunity to put their own imprint and benefit themselves and/or the companies they represent from the possibilities of networking and development at a European level.
Recognizing the importance of video games in the contemporary cultural environment, the i-Game project aims to create a dynamic game co-design community with a high impact on innovation, sustainability, social cohesion and development.
