Make the city smart

The Smart Moscow project (SmartMsk.com) has already aroused the interest of adults and small Muscovites and guests of the capital. On April 19-20, the Russian State Children's Library was held “Geography and Travel Day”, and from May 24 to June 1, a new scientific show “One Day from the Life of the Hospital” will be held in the Russian State Library for Youth. About how the project was born, and the plans of its creators are told by Mikhail Kneeller , the general director of the Smart Moscow project, and Mikhail Kaptyug , its executive director. Questions were asked by Natalia Demina .

- What is the main task of the Smart Moscow project? Do you want more smart Muscovites?

Mikhail Kneeller: Yes, we are pleased when people around are smarter. To tell people about scientific achievements in a popular form and at the same time earning on this is a pleasant mission.

Mikhail Kaptyug : I would single out one of our tasks. Now people are in the conditions of an “information excess” - for each more or less important problem hundreds of articles, comments and other materials are written. We try to help people form a habit of critical thinking and choosing high -quality content from information noise.

- What is the audience of the project?

Mikhail Kneeller : Until we limit ourselves to some narrow target groups. We have projects for people from 5 to 99 years old, but the main backbone is youth (20-30 years old) and family with children. Of course, for the most part, these are educated, intelligent people who seek to increase their cultural level. Some of them work in business, part in science, for us this is not fundamental.

Mikhail Kaptyug: And we are not going to limit ourselves to Muscovites, although this can lead to the renaming of the project or the emergence of “smart St. Petersburg” and other “smart” cities.

- How was he conceived and who became its founder?

Mikhail Kneeller: The project was conceived a year ago as a lecture at adults, other genres were added later -scientific festivals, show, quests, etc. And we were Mikhail Kneller and Mikhail Kaptyug. I graduated from the geographical, Mikhail -Chimic faculty of Moscow State University, and after that they worked on the educational agency for many years, working in an advertising agency. It is logical that one fine day we wanted to create our own “educational service”, since we are well familiar with the various technologies of promotion technologies.

- Who finances this project? Do tickets for measures allow to reach the self -sufficiency of the project?

Mikhail Kneeller: Smart Moscow is a business project, from the first day of its existence it is on self-sufficiency. About 90% of income is brought by the sale of tickets for our events, the remaining 10% are project partners (book publishers, games manufacturers, etc.), as well as corporate customers for whom we will organize intellectual entertainment at their internal events.

Mikhail Kaptyug: Projects that exist only for sponsorship money have one big problem - they often fall apart as soon as the sponsor's plans are changing. We did not want such a fate for our project, so they immediately developed the formats of events that would pay for ourselves. Similar problems of projects that are done on bare enthusiasm - the interests of people are often changing, so interesting undertakings are fading away.

- What are the most proud events?

Mikhail Kneeller: We are proud of those lectures and festivals, the next day after which we have a line of those who wish to buy tickets for the next event. There were all the days of science, the scientific show “Sherlock Holmes Laboratory” and “Scientific New Year”, many cycles of our lectureur.

- Who enters the backbone of the project? Who invents the format and content of events?

Mikhail Kneeller: Six people are working on the project now. In addition to us, this is Sergey Korneev - the host and co -author of most of our children's programs, Olya Korneeva, who helps us a lot to work with the audience, Anya Trofimenko - designer, Ksyusha Tsykunova - photographer and curator of our site.

- What is the most difficult when organizing science days?

Mikhail Kneeller: Perhaps you will be surprised, but the most difficult when organizing large festivals is a search for a suitable site. Unfortunately, it is difficult in Moscow. State institutions impose a number of restrictions, independent halls (hotels, conference centers) are quite expensive. Often you have to change the format of the event depending on the capabilities of the site, which is wrong.

Mikhail Kaptyug: It is also very important to remember the simple truth: "Even to stay in place, you have to run in struggle." At a certain stage, complacency has destroyed a lot of good ideas.

- What area of ​​science will you swing next time?

Mikhail Kneeller: Our next large project for children will be dedicated to medicine - this will be the scientific show “One Day from the Life of the Hospital”. The guys will learn how to apply gypsum, conduct cardiopulmonary resuscitation, decipher cardiograms and even make diagnoses. And we also plan to conduct an art history quest as an experiment. For us, this is a completely new area, because so far we have concentrated only on the natural sciences.

Read more about the project, see http://smartmsk.timepad.ru/events