GEEK PICNIC 2018:
ALL ABOUT THE FUTURE OF HUMAN AND HUMANITY

On August 11–12, in Moscow, the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve will host the largest annual popular science open-air Geek Picnic, dedicated to modern technology, science and art.

In 2018, the festival is supported by the Government of Moscow. Admission to the Geek Picnic is free of charge by prior registration on the festival’s official website.

The main theme of Geek Picnic in 2018 - HUMAN EVOLUTION - the organizers invite you to look into the future of man and humanity, discuss scenarios of technological utopia and dystopia, raise the issue of civil rights of cyborgs, learn all about the prospects of digital immortality and contribute to the colonization of Mars and the Moon.

The headliners of Geek Picnic 2018 in Moscow will be:

Michael Shermer, world skeptic, American historian and popularizer of science;

James Barrath, the author of the book “The Last Invention of Humanity”, which Elon Musk calls among the main ones that determined his worldview;

Seth Stevens-Davidowitz, author of the bestselling book Everyone Lies, which proved that people trust search engines with what they don’t say in polls and psychological tests.

Also on the main stage will be: Fabrisio Grange, Director of Information Technology at # ITX5 and Ilya Sachkov, General Director, founder of Group-IB.

The Geek Picnic festival is not only lectures and discussions, but also crazy summer entertainments, techno-shamanism laboratories, demonstrations of techno-objects and much more!

This year, all guests will find a ruthless blaster battle, experimental overclocking of computers, assembly of a racing car from DK Racing. Everyone will be able to experience what it feels like to survive an intertemporal trip in the Aerotube and watch the cult TV series about the travels of the famous tenth Doctor Who in an open-air cinema from the Sony Sci-Fi TV channel.

Thanks to the Moscow Aviation Institute, festival guests will be able to learn the basics of controlling an aircraft in the Flight Simulator and assembling their own drones at the MAI Drones School.

The title lecture hall Human Evolution will unite lectures and discussions on the most provocative topics, including digitization of consciousness, transhumanism, the rights of robots and much more. Share your futuristic predictions:

• Yandex Technology Distribution Director, programming promoter Grigory Bakunov;
• Vasily Klyucharyov, Head of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Higher School of Economics, expert in the field of neuroeconomic mechanisms of social behavior and social influence on human decision-making;
• bioinformatics, CEO of yRisk: genetics in environmental science Andrei Afanasyev;
• bioinformatics, free software enthusiast, graduate student of the Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Moscow State University M.V. Lomonosova Arthur Zalevsky;
• Biologist, Ph.D., expert in the field of neurobiology and scientific and technological methods for improving a person and prolonging life, head of the neurotechnological project “Brainstorm Neurostimulator” Timofey Glinin;
• Professor of New York State University, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences and member of the Eurasian Academy of Sciences, expert on the theoretical design of new materials Artem Oganov;
• Dmitry Bulatov, contemporary artist, art theorist, organizer of projects on various aspects of the relationship between art and high technology.

On August 11, the Bill on the Rights of Russian Cyborgs will be ratified at the Geek Picnic site in Russia. Kibatletika Union will hold a public talk on cybernetic solutions for people with disabilities with the participation of one of the first owners of Bebionic 3, the most advanced bionic prosthesis, Nigel Ekland and the organizer of the Cyborg Parade in the USA, the initiator of the adoption of the Bill on American Cyborg Rights, Richard McKinnon.

For everyone who is cramped with the most beautiful of the planets, at the festival, with the support of the Cosmonautics Museum and 3D Bioprinting Solutions (INVITRO investor), the SPACE lecture hall will work. Outstanding astronauts, scientists, designers will tell about the prospects of conquering the Moon and Mars, the basics of satellite communications and the latest achievements in rocket science. Vitaly Egorov, a popularizer of astronautics, a blogger, the founder of communities on social networks - “Open Space” and “Curiosity Mars rover”, the initiator of the lunar microsatellite project. Alexander Shaenko, an engineer with more than 15 years of experience in the space industry, project manager 435nm. Alexander Shaenko also led the creation of the first crowdfunding satellite Mayak, took part in the development of the Angara-A5 and KSLV-1 launch vehicles, the Millimetron space observatory, Dauria Aerospace’s private Russian satellite DX1, and was the chief designer in the team Selenokhod, the only Russian participant in the Google Lunar X PRIZE contest. Mark Serov, test cosmonaut RSC Energia. Andrei Gromov, ballistic programmer at Dauria Aerospace, author of the Sea of Clarity project, ballistics of the public project of the lunar satellite, constant host of SpaceX broadcasts, and many others.

In addition, guests of Geek Picnic will be able to see the space bioprinter “Organavt” - a unique development of 3D Bioprinting Solutions, which will be in space by the end of 2018 in the hands of Russian researchers on the ISS, who will conduct a series of experiments on the printing of living tissues.

Within the framework of the Festival, the Department of Science, Industrial Policy and Entrepreneurship of the city of Moscow will demonstrate the development of several startups at once: from the artificial heart of the BIOSOFT-M company and the TIOKRAT air purification system to holographic tours in the mixed reality format of the Hologroup company. Projects will be combined into a symbolic Startup Avenue. In addition, the Center for Business Services (CSC) will operate on the territory of the festival, in which during the two days of the festival it will be possible to get free advice on the creation and conduct of business in the capital, as well as learn about measures of financial and property support for beginning Moscow entrepreneurs.

For children, a series of Moscow Geek Kids events will be organized at Geek Picnic. The smallest geeks will be able to construct a quadrocopter, visit a virtual cinema and discover the laws of physics in the Engineering Sandbox. Also at the festival there will be a special Alley of children’s technoparks - technoparks Caliber, MITS MSTU im. N.E. Bauman, Moscow Polytechnic, Abstract and Kulibin. Directly at Geek Picnic, children and parents will be able to choose and sign up for the most interesting technology park on projects and geographical availability.

The Blockchain zone will appear at the Geek Picnic festival in Moscow, where they will install a giant mining container worth several tens of millions of rubles, which will mine cryptocurrency in real time. The entire cryptocurrency received during the festival, the organizers will play among the participants of Geek Picnic. EXMO cryptocurrency platform - will offer to predict the price of bitcoin at 12:00 on August 12. The prize will be a cold cryptocurrency wallet.

The Bitfury Group ambassador Mark Taverner, the head of Bitfury in Russia Dmitry Ufaev, the managing director of Emercoin Konstantin Bigus, a researcher at the Russian Quantum Center, Alexey Fedorov, Head of Machine Learning & AI REASON will speak in the lecture hall of the Blockchain zone. AI ex-Head of DataAnalytics in Search, Mail. Ru Group Egor Polusmak, CEO, founder of Group-IB, Ilya Sachkov, co-founder of EXMO exchange Ivan Petukhovsky and other experts.

But the organizers did not stop there and this year the Decompilation Zone will be created - a special space for informal communication between programmers, artificial intelligence specialists, data miners and web developers. The headliners of the festival and legendary IT industry professionals will visit the decompilation zone. The program includes: mitaps, extreme overclocking of computers, games and puzzles in the open air. Only those who pass the qualification test will be able to get into the decompilation zone.

For the music scene, Geek Picnic will be responsible for Rico Tubbs, DJ of the cult group Bomfunk MC’s, whose sensational track "Freestyler" has blown up dance floors around the world.

Also at the festival will be a demonstration of a fully “connected” car of the future “Nissan Yandex. Auto Concept ”, the technological base of which is an integrated platform with various Yandex services. The dashboard of the car is divided into two multimedia screens, one of which displays assistant services, for example, Navigator or Weather, and the second - entertainment applications for access to streaming music, video or Internet access. For all services, voice control is available. Alice’s voice assistant is also integrated into the multimedia system.

Follow the program updates on the website and in the social networks of the project: https://vk.com/geekpicnic and https://www.facebook.com/geekpicnic/

Additional Information:

TV channel “Science” and the Geek Picnic festival invite everyone to take part in the competition of scientific videos and photography “Take Science”. To participate, you must register on naukatv.ru and upload your photos or videos. The winners of the contest will be announced in October, and the best videos will go on the air! Watch the video, publish your work. Join now! More information about the rules of the competition on the website of the TV channel "Science" https://naukatv.ru/rules.