Catch the future: five days left to apply for the video essay contest "Dreams of the Future"

Registration for the II Video Essay Contest "Dreams of the Future" is drawing to a close at the National Centre RUSSIA. The project gives young people the opportunity to share their vision of the future in a dynamic video format. Participants can try their hand in four main and two special categories. Registration will continue until 27 April, while submissions will be accepted until 30 April.

Teams from the regions of Russia, CIS countries, and Transnistria (Pridnestrovie) are invited to take part. Each team must consist of three members in either the junior (12–15) or senior (16–18) age categories. More than 2,200 participants from 85 regions of the Russian Federation have already registered, as well as participants from the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, Moldova, Armenia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan.

Participating teams must prepare a video based on one of the following themes: "Science Unites", "Technology and Nature", "The Future is Built Today", and "Space". Participants can also compete in special categories organised by the Skolkovo Foundation and "Readers’ Choice" (a category of the federal bookstore chain Chitai-Gorod, the reading media outlet UF, and the Hechhog Academy).

The Skolkovo Foundation has prepared a special technological prize from among its developments for teams that make it into the top 20, as well as an online training course for teams selected as part of the overall evaluation. The most talented participants in the second special category will receive a certificate for products from the federal bookstore chain Chitai-Gorod worth 60,000 roubles for the winning team in the senior category, book sets from UF for two teams in the senior category and for three teams in the junior category, while the Hechhog Academy will award one team in the senior category a month of free online classes.

A mandatory requirement is to combine AI-generated content with live-action footage featuring all team members in the video essay. The video must be between 1 and 3 minutes long. The video essay must be published on the participant’s VKontakte page, after which a link to the video must be uploaded in the personal account on the official contest website. After moderation, the video essays will be submitted to the expert jury for evaluation.

The jury will include well-known science fiction writers and experts in media, culture, science, and AI technologies. They will assess the entries based on the following criteria: relevance to the chosen theme, video, audio, and editing quality, originality of presentation, artistic performance, quality of AI use, and references to science fiction literature, games, and films. Additional points will be awarded for references to works from the recommended reading list.

The best entries will be announced on 7 June at an awards ceremony at the National Centre RUSSIA. Winners and prize-winners will receive valuable prizes: a laptop for first place, a tablet for second, and a smartphone for third. A special prize from the Director General of the National Centre RUSSIA, Natalia Virtuozova, is a trip to one of the branches of the National Centre RUSSIA for all team members.

The video essay contest "Dreams of the Future" continues efforts to revive public interest in imagining and designing the future, which began at the International Symposium "Inventing the Future". The contest is held as part of the Decade of Science and Technology with the support of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Library for Young Adults, the Council for Science Fiction and Adventure Literature of the Union of Writers of Russia, the Movement of the First, the Federal Foundation for Social and Economic Support of Russian Cinematography (Cinema Fund), Roskino, the Russian Union of Youth, the Artek International Children’s Centre, the VCIOM Analytical Centre, the Coordination Council for Youth Affairs in Science and Education, the National Open Championship of Creative Competencies ArtMasters, the Association of Technology Clubs, the Creative Economy ANO, Nauka@Mail.ru, the Skolkovo Foundation, the TopBLOG national project, the Artificial Intelligence Technology Development ANO, the Media Laboratory, the Eksmo-AST Publishing Group, the YOUF reading media outlet, the Hedgehog Academy of Modern Professions, the federal bookstore chain Chitai-Gorod, the animation company YARKO, the Video Game Industry Development Organisation, and the International Festival NAUKA 0+. Information partners of the Contest include MIC Izvestia, the Mail News and Vfocuse Mail media projects, the 1MI media holding, News Media Holding, the popular science outlets Indicator.Ru and InScience.News, Techprosvet VKontakte, NOP.RF, Hitech, the magazine Nozh, and the News of the First.