Digital Content Hub: a successful example of collaboration by the City of Malaga and the University of Malaga´s Network of Strategic Chairs

Digital Content Hub

In 2017, Malaga became home to the first Spanish National Digital Content hub. This centre is equipped with the latest technologies in 3D animation, virtual reality and graphic design.  It has more than 12,000 m2 divided into recording studios, eSports video gaming stadiums, animation and graphic design centers, virtual reality experimentation rooms, 3D-printer laboratory, demonstration showrooms, training rooms, a Fablab, coworking spaces, business accelerators and offices.

The strategy is a vertical model, based on the quadruple helix and whose objective is to accelerate ideas, projects and technology companies in the media and entertainment sector in Malaga.  It is a unique digital space for the entrepreneurship, connect-working, creative innovation and advanced training. It is a centre aimed mainly at companies and entrepreneurs that promotes technological initiatives, advanced learning and transmedia projects.

The Hub is home to 124 companies and startups. Professors have trained thousands of students and generated 1,037 jobs. The Digital Content Hub has hosted 17 eSports tournaments and over 100 other events with a total of 82,000 participants.

  

 

The University of Malaga's Network of Strategic Chairs, coordinated by the Vice-Rector's Office for Business, Territory and Digital Transformation, is located in this Digital Content Hub, developing different initiatives and projects, resulting from this close and beneficial collaboration.

Some of the many existing projects are the following:

"Málaga Solidaria” Platform Project

Within the Chair of Emerging Technologies for Citizenship (https://www.polovrpe.uma.es/red-de-catedras-estrategicas-2/catedra-de-tecnologias-emergentes-para-la-ciudadania/), the "Málaga Solidaria" platform project should be highlighted: https://www.uma.es/empresa-territorio-y-Transformacion-digital/noticias/la-rede-de-catedras-estrategicas-de-la-uma-pone-en-marcha-una-red-de-ayudas-covid/.
This is an online platform that geolocates solidarity initiatives during the pandemic.

This project has arisen from the collaboration of the aforementioned Chair with Malaga City Council, the Digital Content Centre, the Strategic Chairs of Interactivity and Design of Experiences and Geotechnological Resources for the Economy and Society and the company Cartometrics. It is based on the creation of an online platform referencing the solidarity initiatives that have arisen in the city of Malaga as a result of the spread of covid-19 are shown, with the aim of making them known to the public and providing aid for those who need it.

The platform includes initiatives related to the donation of food or protective material, economic contributions to different causes, telephone calls to the elderly, running errands for people who need it, and attending to all types of demand from the most vulnerable people. All of them have been mapped out in the different districts of the city.

 

"Diana in front of the mirror" Video game Project

This second project, of great interest and very recent, belongs to the Chair of Interactivity and Experience Design (https://www.polodigital.eu/tag/catedra-interactividad-y-diseno-de-experiencias/). It is a video game to prevent gender violence in young people and adolescents and is called "Diana in front of the mirror". It is a first-person virtual experience with a realistic interactive 3D environment with real kinematics and actors, where decision-making changes the course of the plot. It can be used as a prevention tool for gender-based violence among adolescents and young people, so that from the virtual experience they can develop the necessary skills to detect and deal with violent macho manifestations within the couple.

 

"2nd Video Game Gala” Project

On 15th January the Strategic Chair in Videogames, Gambling and Serious Games (https://catedravideojuegos.uma.es/) organized the 2nd Videogame Gala in Málaga, which included the presentation of the "First Spanish White Paper on R&D&I and Science in Videogames".

This project, which has been carried out for more than a year, has been developed with the aim of making visible the magnificent work that our Spanish researchers are doing on video games, gamification and serious games. It should also serve to ensure that research into video games is perceived as relevant to society, and at the same time that the industry has academic references with whom to contact in order to seek synergies.