The Atlantic Club of Bulgaria and twenty educational and non-governmental organizations are preparing the second edition of “Hello, Space!” Bulgaria Calling!” STEAM & SPACE Festival – September 13, Tuesday, in Sofia Tech Park, with the substantial support of the US Embassy Sofia and NASA (Houston). The aim of this festival, building on the first edition, is to ignite the imagination of the youth to think, dream and plan big, pursue STEAM careers and find solutions through science.
The first edition, also with the support of the US Embassy Sofia and NASA, as well as Sofia Municipality and the Ministry of Education and Science, was in 2021, with astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Mark Vande Heij, on board the International Space Station, who answered LIVE pupils’ questions selected via an international competition by a professional jury. The event was broadcast live on NASA TV, social networks and Bulgarian TV channels. The audience reached through the communication channels of all our partners with their networks (such as e-mail, social media and websites) exceeded 3.5 million, and that of invited media was over 6.5 million people. According to H.E. Hero Mustafa, US Ambassador to Bulgaria, “The Downlink to the International Space Station is a historic event, as it is the first of its kind in Europe.“
This year we are ready to fly even higher, dive even deeper and climb new peaks to inspire Bulgarian children to dream. We have prepared a live connection with the first astronaut mother from NASA – Anna Fisher, a virtual walk around CERN (Geneva), as well as a demonstration flight over the sky of Sofia Tech Park by the world record holder – Nikolay Kalaydzhiev. We foresee the special participation of Associate Professor Lachezar Georgiev, Director of the Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Head of the Scientific Team of the Central Committee QUASAR and representative of Bulgaria on the board of the European initiative EuroQCI (European Quantum Communication Infrastructure). He will present his project on quantum communication, which is based on the principles of quantum physics and uses the polarization of light quanta. There will be lectures by specialists, various workshops and stands (e.g. LEGO Education – Build to Launch, Rocket Fuel Lab and Space Food) for children and youth, including an entertaining evening program.
This second edition will focus on two main aspects:
- SPACE as an area of PEACE and SCIENCE
- STEAM as a leverage to achieve progress.
There will be a wide audience of students, teachers and researchers. The one-day event will be completely free for children, teachers, parents and visitors and is composed of workshops, simulations, labs, experiments and science talks.
- Facebook event for this year’s edition: https://www.facebook.com/events/1521947761599304/?ref=newsfeed
- Sofia Tech Park event: https://sofiatech.bg/en/event/hello-space-bulgaria-calling-2-0/
To learn more about the event, visit the web page of “Hello Space” at https://www.hello-space.eu/