OREANDA-NEWS. On November 27 and 28, the Main Robotics Festival of Siberia, Robosib-2014, will be held in Irkutsk for the second time; it ranks among major scientific and educational events of 2014.

Over 500 robotics enthusiasts will come to the capital of the region from various Russian cities and towns. Constructors of robots aged 6 to 30 will compete in eight categories. They will also present automated mechanisms of their own design to a panel of experts, to their competitors and to spectators.

The festival is held by En+ Group and the Volnoe Delo Foundation of Oleg Deripaska as part of the National Program "Robotics: Engineering and Technical Personnel of Innovative Russia". The festival in Irkutsk is a regional stage, whose winners will then represent their teams at the festival in Moscow.

The event is aimed at creating a permanent platform that will enable talented young people to gain new knowledge and exchange their experience. The educational part of the festival will be attended by Russian engineers, who will give special lectures and will host workshops, roundtable discussions, seminars and training sessions in robotics for the participants.

Key speakers of the educational program will include:

- Pavel Vinogradov, the most experienced among currently active test cosmonauts,

- Tim Skorenko, an editor of the Popular Mechanics magazine,

- Vitaly Egorov (a blogger writing under the name of Zelenyikot), a popularizer of astronautics, working for Dauria Aerospace, a private Russian aerospace company, will give a lecture on space robots,

- Andrey Tanaev, Deputy Director of the Applied Physics Institute of Irkutsk State University, PhD, who takes an active part in the implementation of a unique TAIGA (Tunka Advanced Instrument for cosmic ray and Gamma Astronomy) project.

In addition to the educational events, the festival will include a roundtable discussion about the development prospects of robotics. The discussion will be moderated by a writer Leonid Kaganov and will be attended by the speakers of the educational program, popular Siberian bloggers Vasily Damov (http://twitter.com/tayshet), Sergey Filin (feelek.livejournal.com) and Ruslan Popov (sputnikzemli.livejournal.com), as well as media representatives.

The opening and closing ceremonies of the Festival will be attended by representatives of the governments of the Russian Federation, the Irkutsk Region and the city of Irkutsk, senior managers of En+ and the Volnoe Delo Foundation, heads of the leading universities of the Siberian Federal District, experts on automated technical systems from across the country, as well as Russian bloggers and representatives of the regional, national and international media. The organizers expect the festival to attract over 5,000 visitors.

The events will be held on November 27-28, 2014 at pavilion No. 1 of the Sibexpocenter Exhibition Complex at: 253a Baikalskaya Street, Irkutsk.