Fuzzi is an audio social field platform connecting applicants who want to study abroad, with knowledge sharers. It aims to construct a knowledge supply chain by encouraging people to share their experience with others in an oral way, where a potential future business model of remote education could be explored at a preliminary stage by applying the “social atmosphere in mobile phone”. Fuzzi was inspired by the current Chinese overseas studying experience which our team members had gone through. We found for major Chinese students, the journey of applying to overseas universities is tough and fulfilled with difficulties. Statistically, over 700,000 Chinese students choose to study abroad every year, spending millions of Chinese yuan. However, a dark room is created for them where fear of uncertainty arises due to their ignorance of exotic culture, education system, and idealism. They are worried about being trapped in various troubles for their upcoming overseas studyies. Specifically, a scenario could be imagined that there is a Chinese little girl who plans to study abroad, trying to understand a western education system that she has never experienced before. To manage entry to a western university, she has to spend plenty of money on consulting several professional agencies to prepare materials, achieve qualifications, and complete the application procedure. Meanwhile, she needs to pay approximately 16 times more than the fee that a European student shall pay just at the application stage. Therefore, how might we help applicants connect with overseas students by a set of audio services. It should help reduce the huge information gap typically for students who plan to study abroad, helping them decrease the cost of preparation. By using our service, applicants can obtain more accurate and tacit information while knowledge sharers can achieve a sense of accomplishment, personal branding, and additional income. The second important challenge is how might we connect our users in an immersive way with a pleasant information interaction. We believed that chatting as the most common and ancient tool for human beings to do information exchange, is worth deeply exploring some invisible values that have never been found before. We finally output our design Fuzzi, a multi-person voice social intercourse with a mature business model based on a knowledge supply chain. It is a platform where people come and join to chat to gain knowledge. People could make use of virtual facial expressions and atmospheres for icebreaking and obtain an immersive experience. Likewise, the knowledge sharers could obtain a reputation to generate revenue by sharing knowledge through the platform.

The project was initiated by three Chinese Service Design students from the Royal College of Art in the UK as their final year project. The team members include Chao Dai, Huitong Li, and Haoyu Jin who take charge of research, design, and prototyping. Currently, another three program developers from Alibaba and JD have entered to help launch the App.