Field Trip to Microsoft Suzhou

Where are we going today?

Microsoft! We use  Microsoft products such as Windows and Office nearly every day of our school life. Recently, Year 11 computer science students got to visit Microsoft to learn about AIGC and Metaverse.

What is AIGC?

Students were welcomed with a presentation on the impact of AIGC on education and future workplace skills. Usually when you see a picture or read news it is created or “generated” by a person. AIGC (AI generated content) is using AI systems to generate content, such as songs, videos, pictures, and text. AIGC applications to coding, search, digital media, and teaching will cause major shifts in skillsets needed for the future workplace.

What is the Metaverse?

Students next got to experience an enterprise Metaverse environment. Nowadays, the real world and virtual world (e.g., social and VR games) are separate. In the future, our apps and AR/VR technology will blend together using the Internet to make one mixed reality world. The result could be an immersive virtual meeting (or learning) environment where participants join in person, via a desktop or mobile device, or a head-mounted display (e.g., VR goggles).

Product Tour

Students also got to play with a number of new Microsoft products displayed in the visitor center, including a 3D mouse for design applications, AI speech used by popular automotive brands, video creation based on text prompts. Soon all of the Microsoft applications the students use will have support for an AI co-pilot.

Many thanks to Microsoft Suzhou for hosting and organizing the visit. Thanks also to SE21 and computer science teachers for tour facilitation.