Caspian Sci Fest September Activities and Next Steps!

Русская версия данной статьи опубликована на Snob.ru 

Hi everyone!

Here’s a short summary of what Caspian Sci Fest was up in September.

September 12-13, 2014: 

Caspian Sci Fest was showcased in Europe’s first ever crowdfundingfestival in Berlin, Germany. One Spark is the first crowdfunding festival that started in 2011 in Jacksonville Florida. So, Caspian Sci Fest is now part of this historical moment with €505,53 in our pockets. Big thanks to Asiya, Tina, Kent and many anonymous supporters and backers who helped Caspian Sci Fest collect €505,53! The money went to cover the costs for logo development and print material (€280) and the remaining sum will go towards starting a proper website! Despite Caspian Sci Fest performed above average, it was not exactly our ambition, also since event participation associated expenses totaled ca. €700, leaving Caspian Sci Fest with ca. €200 in financial loss. Citing Daniel Daboczy, CEO of FundedByMe and the keynote speaker at the closing ceremony “if you are not embarrassed by your first launch, then you have launched too late” we are happy there is a big room for improvement both for us and our backers.

We also think that gain and experience of participating it this event outweighs this minor collateral effect. So, let’s count the good things that happened to us:

1. Caspian Sci Fest gained new supporters all over the world and got to know a lot of cool and awesome people before, during and after this event!

2. Caspian Sci Fest was rated #25 out of 50 participating project – it is quite a BIG SUCCESS given the fact that the founder was promoting her idea to people she did not know. Those people who visiting the event in Berlin were liking and supporting the idea that will take place thousands kilometers away from their town and they were not the target audience for Caspian Sci Fest activities. So our assumption is "if Caspian Sci Fest was found attractive by this group, the direct beneficiaries should also like it". Caspian Sci Fest did not win a prize in the Science category nor gained a free trip to Jacksonville, but it was predictable and to tell the truth was not our main ambition: we wanted to gain experience and spread the word. Plus, in April 2015 we will be very busy getting ready to the first ever science popularizing festival so going to Florida would be difficult :) 

3. Caspian Sci Fest gained more than half of Internet backing of all 50 projects participating at the event - the power of social media has not been exploited in full, but it is already a good result, don't you think?

4. Caspian Sci Fest received support and help: ASN Berlin (Azerbaijan Student Network) offered assistance by sending three shifts of volunteers and hiring a photographer to cover the event, friends of friends stopped by to say hello at the booth during the festival and vote for the project.  

5. Caspian Sci Fest was offered few interesting opportunities and partnerships! We will keep them undisclosed for the moment, but we will soon name all our exciting projects and opportunities.

6. Caspian Sci Fest initiative was covered in leading national news thanks to the help of US Embassy in Azerbaijan staff and especially their Alumni Outreach Coordinator Ramina as well as popular blogs. One of the most popular Russian-language blog Snob.ru restored Asli's profile she deactivated a year ago by allowing her to use their platform for free to promote Caspian Sci Fest initiative. In addition, few international media editors have confirmed possibility to cover our events once Caspian Sci Fest rolls out its activities!

  

September 26, 2014: Milan!

Caspian Sci Fest founder Asli was invited to Open Night celebrating European Researchers’ Night 2014 on Leonardo Da Vinci Science Museum premises in Milan. It was an amazing, inspiring and enriching experience uniting people of various age. On that day the Museum also inaugurated its Tinkering zone and a live video speech was given by SanFrancisco Exploratorium’s Tinkering Studio directors, Karen and Mike. Event photos can be seen here.

What’s NEXT?

"Full of new ideas, I am currently working on 18 months activities plan which also include fundraising and media strategy as well as organization structure, thus I will soon start scouting for team members who share the same values and with whom we can work on the dream – the launch of first ever science popularization festival in Baku, Azerbaijan. I am adding the new angle to it – art and music. I have started working on a programme with my partners, world leading museums and  science centers as well as contacting artists and musicians! It’s gonna be fun!

BUT next three months are the most crucial as Caspian Sci Fest initiative needs to get some financial support and I run out of my personal savings. Money is also needed to bring this project on the next professional level and allow me to concentrate on it full-time. So, more than ever I will be busy planning, consulting, lobbying and searching for support! It is going to be a very difficult, but, hopefully, rewarding month! 

Last but not least, without volunteers, friends and family this initiative will be one of many I might have in my mind and then forget the next day. Without inspiration and support I would not fight my fears and doubts. It is a long-long way before results I am aiming at will be seen. It is not a job of one person, but many and currently my main goal is to find likeminded individuals. When I am asked why I spend so much energy in this ambitious project, my position is best described by philosopher Dan Dennett’s phrase “find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it”. I have decided a series of activities I called “back to the roots” of doing something personally meaningful, interesting and important. Caspian Sci Fest is one of them. For me it is more than a project. It is a dream. Let's dream together!" 

Asli, the Founder of Caspian Sci Fest

We have a winner of our weekend raffle!

During One Spark Berlin event Caspian Sci Fest offered the festival visitors a chance to win an amazing and very inspiring book - The Art of Tinkering. The winners are Ellen and Daniel Kolodzig who were the only ones who found all five correct answers, so technically, there was no raffle. We congratulate the winners and will send them the book shortly!  

QUIZ “Which 5 (five) are correct” 

1. The driest place on earth is the Sahara
No. According to NASA studies, it’s not Sahara, but Atakama

2.  Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on earth
When discussing mountains, there is a huge difference in definition between ‘tallest’ and ‘highest’. Mount Everest is the highest, but the tallest mountain on earth is actually in Mauna Kea in Hawaii. This is because ‘highest’ is defined as a measure of mean sea level to summit, while ‘tallest’ is a measurement from the bottom of the mountain to the top. From it’s base to it’s tip, Mauna Kea measures 33,465 feet. In comparison, from base to tip, Mount Everest comes in at a measly 29,029 feet, shorter by more than 4000 feet. With sea level hypothetically removed from the picture, if the two mountains were placed next to each other Mauna Kea would be taller, but because a huge amount of it is under the sea and invisible to most of us the issue of height becomes blurred. Some even believe Mount Kilimanjaro is taller than Everest because it rises straight from the African plain while Everest sits atop the Himalayas.

3. We lose 70% of our body heat through our heads
No, according to the studies it’s proven to be wrong.

4. An ostrich buries its head in the sand when afraid
There are some misperceptions about these animals and this is one of them

5. The “planet” Pluto got its name after a close friend of Walt Disney suggested it
No, it was the other way around


6. A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court
This is true! True - gold can be rolled thin enough to be translucent, so thin that it is used as a filter on the helmets of astronauts. According to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), a little gold goes a long way: “Gold is malleable, so it can be flattened into extremely thin sheets. […] Gold leafing—also known as gilding—is an ancient technique. Traditional artisans beat raw gold between pieces of leather until it was almost too thin to be seen. One ounce of gold may be hammered thin enough to cover more than 9 square meters (96.9 square feet) of a surface. The gold leaf may be only 0.18 microns (seven millionths of an inch) thick; a stack of 7,055 sheets would be no thicker than a dime.”

7. The drink Fanta was developed in Germany in the 1930’s. The name came about when the team that had to name it were told (in German!) to use their imaginations
Yes! From “fantastisch” word

8. The liquid inside a coconut is coconut milk
 It is called "coconut water". "Coconut milk" is the liquid that comes from the grated meat of a brown coconut.

9. The commonest bird in the world is the penguin
In Antarctic, but not the world. The most common bird is domesticated chicken.

10. The first person to win two Noble Prizes for Science was a woman
Yes, Maria Curie is the only person to win twice in multiple sciences (received the Physics Prize in 1903 for the discovery of radioactivity and the Chemistry Prize in 1911 for the isolation of pure radium making her the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences), and was part of the Curie family legacy of  five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Pantheon in Paris.

11. The Canary Islands take their name from a bird
Nope, the opposite

12. You can see the Great Wall of China from the moon
No. The wall is a maximum 9.1 m (30 ft) wide, and is about the same color as the soil surrounding it. Based on the optics of resolving power (distance versus the width of the iris: a few millimeters for the human eye, meters for large telescopes) only an object of reasonable contrast to its surroundings which is 70 mi (110 km) or more in diameter (1 arc-minute) would be visible to the unaided eye from the Moon, whose average distance from Earth is 384,393 km (238,851 mi). The apparent width of the Great Wall from the Moon is the same as that of a human hair viewed from 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) away. To see the wall from the Moon would require spatial resolution 17,000 times better than normal (20/20) vision.

13. The very first living things sent to space were mice
You might think it was dog laimed Laika, since it is such a famous story, but these were food flies Drosophilas aboard a U.S.-launched V-2 rocket on February 20, 1947 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Laika was sent into space on November 7, 1957 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Bolshevik revolution. On August 31, 1950, the U.S. launched a mouse into space.

14. Camels store water in their humps
No. Camels do not directly store water in their humps as was once commonly believed. The humps are actually reservoirs of fatty tissue: concentrating body fat in their humps minimizes the insulating effect fat would have if distributed over the rest of their bodies, helping camels survive in hot climates. When this tissue is metabolized, it yields more than one gram of water for every gram of fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration (as oxygen is required for the metabolic process): overall, there is a net decrease in water. 

15. The word “electricity” comes from the Greek word for lightning 
No. It means “amber”.

16. A coin dropped from the Empire State building would kill you if it landed on your head
No. It is an urban legend. When an object falls to earth it gains speed. It eventually gains so much speed that it doesn't accelerate anymore, this is called Terminal Velocity. If a human were to jump off a plane he would accelerate to his terminal velocity. If you take the mass of an average grown human, his terminal velocity would be about 100 something miles per hour. But the mass of a penny is only about 1 gram, so its terminal velocity would only be about 56mph. That means that the penny would accelerate to this speed and then it won't accelerate any more and it will maintain this current speed. You also have to take into consideration that on a building as high as the empire state building wind rushes up the sides so your measly little penny would simply be blown away. In the slim chance that it would hit a pedestrian, it would more than likely sting but he would be able to walk away and live another day. It is unlikely that the penny would even penetrate the skin of the human.

17. India has more tigers than any other country
The way question is posed, it is not since India is the world’s  largest habitat of wild tigers.

18. The sun is white
Yes!  From our perspective it does look a little yellow, especially after sunrise or shortly before sunset. If you could travel into space and look at the Sun without going blind, you’d find that it’s actually white, and not yellow.
Using a prism, you can see how sunlight can be broken up into the spectrum of its colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When you mix all those colors together, you get white.

19. Cats are not mentioned in the Bible 
They are! Namely Bar., vi, 21.

20. The largest living life form is a fungus
It’s TRUE! Because of their underground root system some fungus can be spread for kilometers

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