Inter Week program offers new and mature programmers an acquaintance with the Digital Botanical Garden project, learn how to create an interactive mobile application, download and test it in the Botanical Garden.

On October 28 at 14:00, within LETI Inter Week, students and researchers of LETI can try out the application "Digital Botanical Garden," created by the youth IT lab VibeLab.

The app developer will deliver a master class on the principles of smart quest app development and operation. Participants will be able to download the application and test it in navigation and quest modes in the Botanical Garden.

"Digital Botanical Garden is one of the most promising projects of the VibeLab. It is developed by our youth team in collaboration with the scientists of the Botanical Garden. This digital intellectual pastime product has functions, which are also applicable for interesting and active leisure in the park, forest, or city garden, and with the addition of options it can be used for educational projects in the field of biology, plant breeding, landscape design and any other related to wildlife in the city". 

The app includes navigation for visitors to the Botanical Garden with information on plants and botanical landmarks. It has several excursion routes for different seasons, and by applying the "quest" option, users will make their stay in the garden even more active and informative.

Research team of the Department of Information and Measuring Systems and Technologies of LETI carried out the analysis of spatial information on natural territories. LETI researchers developed the geographic information base for the "digital" Botanical garden, and this work has attracted great interest from international partners.

"The Botanical Garden is actively engaged in popularizing botanical science. Annual exhibitions and events are accompanied by botanical quests, which currently are hand-checked. The Digital Botanical Garden mobile application will both digitalize the information processing and make the learning process itself more attractive to young people", says Alexandra Medvedeva, Press Manager at the Cultural and Educational Center of the BIN RAS.

The joint plans include the introduction of interactive routes and quests on different collection sites and for different age groups. Also, according to Alexandra Medvedeva, the application platform may interest other departments in the Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, such as the Botanical Museum, geobotany and mycology laboratories, etc. 

LETI's VibeLab is a structure open for different professionals ready to work on experimental projects in an interdisciplinary team. It also conducts IT courses both for training from scratch and for advanced learners. Classes in the lab help integrate into the IT environment in a short time, and the best students are invited to project teams.