‘People and Society’: HSE University Hosts NAUKA 0+ All-Russian Festival
On October 7, a ‘People and Society’ thematic platform opened at HSE University’s Cultural Centre as part of the NAUKA 0+ science festival. Guests were able to explore the world of scientific discoveries and interesting experiments, as well as listen to a series of lectures from leading HSE experts.
Every year, the NAUKA 0+ festival is held in numerous Russian cities at a variety of venues. Its main goal is to engage young people in the scientific agenda and establish a close connection between science and society. The festival brings together people who have been involved and interested in science for a long time and those who are just beginning to get acquainted with a particular field. Every year, over 850,000 people come to the event in Moscow—from preschoolers to senior citizens.
Guests of HSE University’s festival visited different stations where they listened to public lectures, participated in experiments using neurotechnologies, played intellectual games, and took part in a VR quest. The day ended with the screening of the film 2052: See the Future.
‘Empirical research on the topic of “People and Society” is the hallmark of our university,’ comments Andrey Kozhanov, Director of HSE University’s Centre for Student Academic Development. ‘It’s great that despite the bad weather, many spectators, families with children, and schoolchildren came to the lecture on Saturday. There were a lot of questions and a good atmosphere in the interactive area of the festival.’
Konstantin Vishnevsky, Head of Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Centre scientific project of the National Centre for Medical Sciences, gave a lecture on people and robots. ‘This is a hot topic,’ he says. ‘It is important to understand how the relationship between robots and humans is built now and how it will be built in the future.’ According to the expert, many professions will soon be partially or completely under the control of robots. The topic of artificial intelligence was also touched upon by Alexander Vecherin, Associate Professor at the School of Psychology. In his lecture, he talked about how AI and neural networks help predict human behaviour. The programme was supplemented with lectures by Dmitrii Dubrov, Research Fellow at the Centre for Sociocultural Research, and Ekaterina Streltsova, Director of the Centre for Statistics and Monitoring of S&T and Innovation.
The festival's atmosphere is cozy and intimate, added Anastasia Zemlyakova, Head of HSE University’s Partnerships and Special Projects Unit. ‘We are showing what is perhaps a small selection of our achievements, but it is quite representative; we explain what HSE University is today, what kinds of interdisciplinary research we conduct, and what activities are implemented in order to improve both the educational and research environment,’ she explained.
Guests of the event shared their impressions with the HSE News Service. Darya Slavkova, a first-year master’s student at Moscow State Pedagogical University, is training to teach mathematics and computer science at universities. ‘I heard about the festival at a seminar at Moscow State Pedagogical University, I’m interested in it because there are topics on psychology,’ she says. ‘I’ve just passed a station that is related to the perception of smells, and I am also interested in the station with neural mechanisms. I also plan to listen to the lecture “How Accurately Can We Predict Behaviour?”. There are a lot of activities here today.’
Polina Infante, an 11th-grade student at Moscow School No. 171, is preparing to enrol in university. ‘I learned about today’s festival from my teachers. It is a great opportunity to spend an interesting weekend. I want to enrol in a course related to PR, perhaps at HSE University. I absolutely love it here,’ said Polina.
Her mother, Sofia Infante, was interested in the lectures at the NAUKA 0+ festival. ‘This is a very relevant topic,’ she says. ‘When choosing a profession, you should always carry out an analysis so that your specialty does not become irrelevant over time. Now, for example, many things are done by AI, and things that were previously long and expensive to create can be done in three seconds.’
Dalia Kambarova, a third-year student at the Faculty of Economics at the Kazakhstan branch of Moscow State University, came to the festival with a friend who had long wanted to visit HSE University. ‘I was interested in today’s lectures “Why Do People Want to Be Beautiful?” and “How Accurately Can We Predict People’s Behaviour?”. In addition, there are many interesting intellectual games and VR quests,’ explained Dalia.
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