'Megacities of the Future'

Last winter HSE University launched an English-taught webinar series, ‘Megacities of the Future’.

The series covered key dimensions of  contemporary urban planning: ‘smart city’, artificial intelligence, Internet of things, Big Data, modern trends in urban design, management in science, technology and innovation.

The following HSE departments collaborated on the project:

• The International Admissions Office
• The Shukhov Lab - Laboratory for Experimental Urban Design
• The Faculty of Computer Science
• The Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge
• The HSE Tikhonov Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (MIEM HSE)
• The Faculty of Communications, Media, and Design

The webinars, delivered by HSE faculty and staff, were held every Thursday, from February 14 to May 30, and drew  students from a wide range of countries. Participants received an official electronic certificate, which can be be submitted as part of an applicant's portfolio when applying for HSE master's programmes in 2019.

Marina Kozak

Director of the International Student Recruitment Centre

We got the idea in the summer of 2018, when we were working on projects aimed at recruiting students from Latin America. It was clear that there was little interest in Russia in this region, and even less interest in HSE University programmes.

We analyzed the interests of the audience and found that the development of megacities is a very popular topic in Latin American countries. Thus, we decided to develop the project ‘Megacities of the Future’. In order to widely cover all of the academic approaches to the topic at HSE University, we analyzed all topics and areas connected with megacities and combined them into one interdisciplinary project.

 ‘Megacities of the Future’ attracted participants from the USA, the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Columbia, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Azerbaijan and China. More than 1 million people viewed the video course.

Don’t worry if you missed the webinars. They are all available on the project website.

And you can watch a few of them right here.

July 16, 2019