To infinity and beyond: Starmus co-founder Garik Israelian on mixing science, music and art

I'm Garg Estradian, co-founder and director of the STARMS Festival, which was created in 2011. It was amazing, amazing accumulation of brains and artists here in one place, paying a tribute to Professor Stephen Hawking. It was a single event which I'm sure inspired thousands of kids and young people who would choose science or arts for their future. Communicating science to the general public is a very serious very serious project so it cannot be done simply by a couple of journalists and some few films because we live in the 21st century we are in social media we compete with entertainment industry and science community cannot really compete with this industry so there's two ways all science will join arts and join forces and together we'll do science communication and that's what we are trying to do so we bring in giant filmmakers sci-fi writers musicians who with their art inspire generations to go to science so i can't say how many millions were inspired by interstellar film by blade runner of ridley scott and the hawking medal is precisely for this so we it's it's not an oscar in arts but it's a it's an oscar to recognize science communication value of artists which is a huge potential so that's we are so proud really we are so proud to having the hawking medal with us for 10 years and bringing it to the best people best artists and best scientists and science communicators in the world like brian cox Neil deGrasse Tyson and we gave just it to Artemis to crew so we have to involve young community more and more into Starmus this is our first goal go to young generation and the second thing we have to make sure that the next level of the Stephen Hawking medal will go now to most talented artists who are less known in public because we have already achieved this goal bringing the best of the best, now we have to find hidden talents, hidden science communicators, hidden talents and bring them in and make sure they collaborate with science and with public so they are well-known.