SciFest Dubai

Mission
To celebrate science through the arts and popular culture and to promote STEAM education.

 

Contact

SciFest Dubai Director: Rohan Roberts | www.rohanroberts.com

SciFest Dubai Founder & CEO: Lara Matossian | www.storytimewithgoodrainbow.com

Objectives

• To bring culture back into science and make science fun and exciting through music, dance, poetry, theatre, debates, conferences, movie screenings and science fiction writing. 

• To develop a sense of wonder and awe about science, technology, the future.

• To bring science out of the narrow confines of classroom curriculum and academic circles and into mainstream culture. 

• To serve as the main platform for research centres, science museums, universities, and schools to showcase their scientific talents and achievements.

• To encourage scientific literacy among the general public.

• To collaborate with other festivals, events, and organizations with similar goals.

• To create networking platforms for science enthusiasts.

• To exhibit the latest technologies and innovations within the field. 

• To reach out to recognised scientists and authors from around the world.

• To curate and aggregate science news and memes, and promote online science discussions on social media.

• To maintain SciFest Dubai as an ongoing enterprise through events, workshops, and thinktanks in the build-up to the annual science festival.

 
Core Values
Intelligent Optimism
Intelligent Optimism is about being thrilled, excited, and optimistic about the future in an informed and rational way based on what science and technology have to offer. 

Cosmic Citizenship
Cosmic citizenship is about moving beyond being merely a global citizen and thinking of oneself as a citizen of the universe.  It involves seeking knowledge about the cosmos and being future ambassadors for planet earth.

Collaboration
The 21st century calls for collaboration over competition. "We" is the new "me" - especially in the fields of science and education. 

Scientific Literacy 
Science is more than a collection of facts. It’s a way of thinking. When one looks at the world through a scientifically literate lens, the world becomes a place full of answers and explanations – a world free from pseudoscience and superstition. 

Background
Dubai has a literary festival, jazz festival, food festival, and film festival. There are music concerts, art exhibitions, and big-budget sporting events. This is what makes Dubai a vibrant and exciting city. However, more could be done to raise the profile of popular science among the general public.  

SciFest Dubai is an attempt to increase public participation in science by highlighting the awe and wonder associated with science. Many wonderful science-based events are already happening at the moment, but they are in isolated pockets. SciFest Dubai aims to bring all these events together in one exciting series of events.

Festival History

Since 2014, there have been seven editions of the Dubai Science Festival. The venues have been in numerous schools, universities, and innovation hubs across the city of Dubai. 

​

Scifest has organised workshops for Dubai's Knowledge and Human Development Authority, the UAE Ministry of Education's National Science, Technology, and Innovation Festival, The Royal College of Surgeons, UK's National Space Academy, and with Saudi Space Commission's AJYAL Space to run online space-themed workshops in Arabic. 

 

More information about SciFest Dubai

Click here to view/download the SciFest Dubai overview

Click here to view/download a few highlights of SciFest.

Click here to view/download images from SciFest events. 

 

Community initiatives

SciFest Dubai has three major community initiatives under its umbrella:

Intelligent Optimism (460,000+ followers on Facebook)
Café Scientifique Dubai  (25,000+ followers on Facebook)
Project Tesseract (Promoting Third Culture conversations)

​

​