From July 16 to 19, TUST's Tianjin-Jizhou Dreams, Smart Rural Design team conducted a summer field program in Sangzi Town, Jizhou District. Led by Liu Yu of the College of Art and Design, the group included 18 undergraduate and graduate students from the colleges of Art and Design, Foreign Languages, Artificial Intelligence, and Food Science and Engineering. Drawing on the provincial- or ministerial-level first-class social practice course Art and Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practice, the team worked on digital rural tourism systems, higher-value cultural and creative products, and integrated livestream marketing. Tong Zhijun, Party secretary of Qiugezhuang Village in Sangzi, and Tong Xinghua, general manager of Tianjin Lohas Lemon Tourism Development Co., Ltd., attended the program and heard the team's results presentation.

Figure 1

The team presents results from the Art and Design, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practice course.

The program supported TUST's Pioneer Program and industry-education integration while connecting Sangzi with university expertise. Sangzi has been exploring digital approaches to agriculture and integrated agricultural, cultural and tourism development. The TUST team worked from local needs and applied classroom learning to digital tourism, cultural and creative product development, and livestream marketing.

Figure 2 The team conducts field research in Sangzi Town.

For digital tourism, the team worked with Tasi Technology and introduced the TasiChat tourism large language model. It developed Tiantian, a digital guide for Tianxi Farm, and the Tasi Travel mini program. The program combines AI dialogue, augmented-reality interpretation and intelligent navigation to support planning before a visit, on-site experiences and post-visit sharing. The deployment gave the farm a new digital service channel and represented an initial step in Sangzi's use of AI for tourism.

Figure 3 The team completes deployment of the digital rural tourism system.

For cultural and creative products, the team studied local customs, intangible cultural heritage and agricultural features in Sangzi and Jizhou. It then developed a series of products that translate local culture into portable and shareable forms, with the aim of increasing the value of agricultural and tourism products.

For marketing, the team conducted four themed livestreams covering agricultural products, interaction with the digital guide, tourism routes and rural life. The livestreams created a new channel for agricultural sales and tourism promotion.

Figure 4 The team conducts a themed livestream.

At the results presentation, Tong Zhijun said the overall proposal responded to local development needs. Tong Xinghua expressed interest in continued cooperation and the local implementation of additional results. Liu Yu said the program connected course teaching with social needs and that future work would continue to expand cooperation between TUST and Sangzi.

Figure 5 Tong Zhijun and other participants hear the team's results presentation.

The project combined university expertise, local resources and technology-company participation. Sangzi plans to continue working with TUST to apply the project's digital tools, cultural and creative design, and marketing methods to rural industry and tourism development.

Figure 6

The interdisciplinary TUST team at Tianxi Farm.