Chinese scientists produced an unprecedented show at the China National Convention Center last January. In one portion of the evening gala, a performer dressed in Peking Opera-style costume acted out the story of Galileo’s trial in the 17th century. In another segment, Gu Zhongyi, a Beijing Tiantan Hospital physician, talked about the hit movie Mr. Six from the perspective of a nutritionist.
The performance was organized by Guokr.com, a “geek” website that has been popularizing science in present-day China.
From Blogging to Business
Guokr.com’s founder, Ji Xiaohua, better known by his alias, Ji 13, started writing about science while working on his doctorate in neurobiology at Fudan University in Shanghai, about 10 years ago. Ji’s articles, unlike most scientific papers, were easy to understand and interesting to the lay people who had a chance to read them.
In 2008, a year after graduating, Ji established the Songshuhui Association of Science Communicators, a non-profit science bloggers association. Most of the writers, who had PhDs in scientific fields from institutions at home and abroad, made scientific information easy to digest. Still, many people were surprised when the website attracted up to 30,000 page views a day by the end of 2008.
A year later, as the site’s popularity grew, Ji and his colleagues began organizing offline activities to meet its readers’ demands. Songshuhui’s 24 Science Carnivals, for instance, sustained its fans’ appetite for science. Meanwhile, Ji’s team faced mounting pressure to restructure its operations in order to resolve time management and financial problems.
“But we couldn’t launch commercial projects since Songshuhui was a non-profit organization whose members worked on a voluntary basis, so couldn’t commit to fixed working schedules,” Ji said in an interview.
Some chose to quit, and Ji had to rethink his way forward.
At that time, the burgeoning Internet-based business model was starting to draw the attention of the Chinese capital market, thanks to successful exemplars such as Alibaba.com. Ji decided to start another company in cooperation with venture capitalists to tap the market potential of popularizing science on the web. In 2010, Guokr.com was born.
Some natural history enthusiasts bring their kids to see various animals in Olympic Green (an Olympic Park) on July 17, 2015 in Beijing.
Unlike Songshuhui, Guokr.com was open to anyone, not just scientists. The site positioned itself as an Internet community where everyone could participate in scientific discussions.
“Millions of young people are curious about science, and they are keen to acquire more knowledge,” Ji said. “Those people are our targeted users.”
From the very first day, Guokr.com was a business that needed to make money. During the early years, it produced columns similar in concept to Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters. Guokr.com eventually became recognized as a brand that popularized science on the Internet. But Ji had not yet found a good profit model.
In July 2013, Guokr.com found a winning formula. Ji’s team introduced massive open online course (MOOC), teaching platforms introduced by top U.S. universities that soon gained popularity around the world. Nearly one million users registered on mooc.guokr.com within a year after the service was launched. Guokr.com also partnered with Coursera, the world’s largest MOOC provider, and 20 other online education projects across the world.
Such efforts reflect Guokr.com’s vision to improve the relationship between people and knowledge, Ji said. The MOOCs helped Guokr.com attract a new round of venture funding worth US $20 million.
Foundation for Science Popularization
Guokr.com isn’t alone in China. Netizens often compare it with Zhihu.com, also founded in 2010, which offers science-heavy content. Zhihu.com is a question and answer website that has a model similar to that of U.S.-based Quora. But Zhihu.com has remained faithful to its identity as a social platform for common users, as opposed to Guokr.com that has shifted to online education. Both sites have roughly the same number of users and degree of influence.
“Today’s social environment has become more open to popular science,” Ji said.
As a result of China’s high-speed economic growth since the 1980s, a large Chinese middle-class has emerged. They care not only about their basic needs of food, clothing and shelter, but are also interested in everyday scientific knowledge, such as explanations for contaminated food and air pollution.
“The topics on Guokr.com are always based on current scientific events,” Ji said.
The Chinese audience for science has also spread from school children to grown-ups. As an illustration, bookstores’ best-selling lists include scientific publications, such as those on natural history.
Last year, after Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize for her discovery of artemisinin, Guokr.com carried special reports on the subject.
Last March, the Google DeepMind’s computer program AlphaGo beat world top professional Go player Lee Sedol by a final score of 4 to 1. Guokr.com accordingly issued a series of articles from the angle of artificial intelligence and neurology, and also interviewed famous Chinese Go players. These timely reports not only satisfied the curiosity of readers, but also gave scientific insight into the game.
With its in-depth reports, photographs, as well as question-and-answer columns, Guokr.com has attracted at least a million fans on both instant messaging app WeChat and the micro-blog Weibo.
“The development of the Internet and mobile Internet makes it fun to popularize science, which was considered boring in the past,” Ji said. “The key to popularizing science is through new technologies and new media.”
Collaboration between Government and Market
Ji partly credits government programs on the Internet and popular science for Guokr.com’s success. “The government has provided preferential policies to Internet start-ups, and also helped private companies like Guokr.com to participate in government scientific projects,” he said.
Large companies have also expanded their business into this field. Chinese Internet giant Tencent, for example, signed a framework agreement with the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) on April 30, 2015 to promote “China Science Communication” project.
The project tops the government’s list of ways to boost the popularization of science online, as well as to strengthen the country’s online science education program. The project sees devices like smartphones as crucial tools in the promotion of science. Tencent participated in the project by providing services such as cloud computing, big data and personalized analysis that can help editors offer the specific knowledge catering to users’ appetites.
Ji, however, said that China has got off to a late start in popularizing science compared with developed Western countries.
“A large number of Western scientists are great at explaining science to make it accessible, and they often participate in public activities,” he said. “But in China, scientists are too often locked in their ivory towers.”
Ji consequently appreciates the many volunteers who provide their time and energy for scientific popularization, and hopes their passion for the cause may be encouraged. He is optimistic that China will stay on the right track.
