Siberian Federal University

The online marathon was attended by students from the School of Trade and Services, the School of Mathematics and Fundamental Informatics, the School for the Humanities, the School of Economics, Finance and Public Administration, the Military Training Centre, and the Law School.

Dmitry Peskov gave a lecture FakeNews vs Pure Knowledge: “Fake news is a weapon that is used against our country. We live in a world where truth and falsehood go hand in hand. It is important not to stop trying to distinguish them from each other, not to let lies take over your mind. Only knowledge and professionalism can be opposed to it.”

Elon Musk shared about how he sees the future in 50 years, when Tesla will appear in Russia, what skills are needed for specialists of the future, about cooperation between countries in space and the future of artificial intelligence.

“There are many talented and energetic people in Russia, and I think that there should be more dialogue and communication between Russia and the United States. It is wonderful that we are establishing contact, Russia is a country with a creative history of technology, I admire the Russian and the Soviet Union's achievements in rocketry. I believe that this will continue in the future, and I would like to urge you to fight for the future to be better than the past,” — Elon Musk told Russian students.

Nikolay Solopeko, master student of SibFU's School for the Humanities, head of the Digital Humanities laboratory, asked Ilon Musk his question. Based on Ilon's previously expressed opinion about the irrelevance of school and university education, he asked how, according to the engineer, it is possible to correct the situation and improve the teaching methods of students and schoolchildren.

“Those who teach us should explain why we are being taught this. The brain constantly evaluates the importance of the information it receives and decides whether to memorize it or not. So, as soon as the brain decides that the information is not needed, it immediately erases it from memory. Therefore, it is important for us to understand why we are learning certain things, what is the point. The main thing is to have a goal and understand why we need it.

As for the methods of learning, it would be much more useful to initially see and understand what problem you are facing, and only then look for tools to fix it. For example, you disassemble an internal combustion engine, and ask yourself the questions ‘why am I doing this, what parts will I return back and what will I leave’, ‘what tools are needed to disassemble it’. It is very interesting. How often does it happen? Say, you have a course on screwdrivers at your university, and you sit and think ‘Why do I need these screwdrivers?’ Let's try to delve deeper into the essence of the problem – why do we need this screwdriver, and what other tools do we need to solve problems?

By the way, we live in strange times. Previously, if you wanted to learn something, you had to go to university and buy expensive courses, but now there are so many great courses online and they are free. Knowledge is no longer limited, you can learn everything you want by yourself. And this knowledge will help you to be useful in the world, and to be useful and needed is the most difficult task in the world,” — said the founder of Space X to the student of SibFU.