Dmitry Borisovich Volkov
Dmitriy Borisovich Volkov (born 9 July 1976 in Moscow) is an entrepreneur and philosopher He co-founded Social Discovery Ventures (SDVentures), an international internet holding with headquarters in Malta, and сo-owns Dating Group. Volkov is a member of Tretyakov Gallery board of trustees, patron of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, trustee of the educational center of Moscow Museum of Modern Art and chairman of the trustee fund of Arsenal State Center of Modern Art (Nizhny Novgorod). In 2016 he founded SDV Arts and Science Foundation. He holds a Ph.D in philosophy and co-founded Moscow  Center for Consciousness Studies at the Philosophy Department of Moscow State University. Business. In 1998 Volkov founded IT-online, the company specializing in development and promotion of online projects. In 2014, SDVentures, an internet holding, was founded along with foreign partners, it consolidated Volkov's assets after the sale of IT-Online. The headquarters of SDVentures is located in Malta. Since 2013 and through SDVentures Volkov invested about $20 million in Bitfury, a blockchain software and hardware developer. In April 2018, Dmitriy Volkov and Yuriy Gurskiy joined the Managing Board of Gagarin Capital venture fund owned by Nikolay Davidov  and Mikhail Taver. In 2019, Dmitriy sold a part of his intellectual property to the management company for $215 million and acquired a share in Dating Group, a joint venture. Dating Group is one of the biggest companies in the industry, with 73 million registered users and annual revenue of $200 million. The Dating Group includes Dating.com, Cupid Media, AnastasiaDate, AsianDate, ArabianDate, AfricaBeauties, AmoLatina, EuroDate, YourChristianDate, DateMyAge and ChinaLove. In 2021, Dating Group acquired Once, the Swiss dating app. The dating.com group appears in the ICIJ offshore leaks database. The holding company also owns a real estate fund , Real Estate Discovery Ventures (REDV). As of 2019, the estimated fund value is $198 million. The fund mainly focuses on the US shopping malls. Since 2001, Dmitriy Volkov has been a member of the Project Management Institute community, and since 2006, a member of Usability Professional Association. He has an Executive MBA degree from Moscow School of Management Skolkovo and a number of certificates from Harvard Business School. He is a partner of a number of international funds, for example Blockchain Capital and Mangrove Capital Partners. Art Activity. In 2015, Dmitry Volkov was one of organizers of the first  Street Piano Festival in Moscow. In 2016 the Transcendental Piano Festival took place in Muzeon Park in Moscow with the assistance of Dmitriy Volkov and SDV Arts & Science Foundation. Contemporary Art. In the spring of 2015, Volkov assisted in publishing a series of art books "Contemporary Art" dedicated to the modern Russian artists, and their role in the context of the development of Russian and global culture. He performed and held a number of art events together with Oleg Kulik, a modern artist and a performer, including “Strict Proof of an External World” in the spring of 2015. In the  summer of 2015 he organized an expedition of Social Discovery Ventures employees to the Burning Man, where he presented the result of his latest project with Oleg Kulik – installation "Oraculetang". In September 2015 Volkov arranged a pop-up exhibition of modern technological art "Superconduction: challenge of art & technology" in Riga. As of January 1, 2016, he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Tretyakov Gallery support Fund. On 15 April 2016, a new exhibition "Modern art: 1960-2000. Restart” was launched in Tretyakov Gallery with his contribution in Moscow. In 2016-2017, the fund partnered the grant  program of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art that awards grants to young artists of "Art and technology", and Dmitriy became the museum patron. In September 2016, during the exhibition "Collection! Modern art in the USSR and Russia in 1950-2000" he presented the Parisian Centre Pompidou with a piece by Sergey Bugaev-Afrika. In March 2017, Dmitriy took part in the "Secret Millionaire", a TV-show on Pyatnitsa! Channel, which led to his decision to support the ‘Arsenal’ museum in Nizhny Novgorod. In May 2017, he became the Board Chair of the Nizhniy Novgorod trustee fund “Cultural Capital of Volga  Region”. In 2017, Business Insider named "Aliens? — Yes!", the collaboration of Dmitriy Volkov and the artist Andrey Bartenev, one of the best scenes of the Burning Man festival in Nevada, USA. In May 2019, Dmitriy Volkov, together with media artists Natalia Altufova and Yaroslav Kravtsov, presented a multimedia pop-up project Faced2Faced, as part of the special program at the 58th Venice Biennale. In 2018, Volkov's fund SDV Arts & Science Foundation partnered with the Educational Center of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. On November 28, 2019 the Moscow Museum of Modern Art launched the exhibition "This Is Not  a Book. Collection of Dmitriy Volkov. The story of a man, his art and library." This exhibition became a part of the museum’s educational program. Academic activity. Academic career. In 1998, he graduated from the History Department of Moscow State University (MSU) and later took the postgraduate programme in International relations in IMEMO. In 2003, he enrolled at the Philosophy Department of MSU, and later took a graduate program in philosophy. In 2008, he defended Ph.D thesis with "D. Dennett's theory of consciousness"as the subject. In 2009, he became one of the founders of Moscow Center for  Consciousness Studies at the Philosophy Department of Moscow State University. The Center supports and facilitates studies in the fields of philosophy of mind, personal identity, free will and moral responsibility. In 2012, he published the book "Boston zombie: D.Dennett and his theory of consciousness." In 2014, he became a member of the American Philosophical Association. The international scientific conference "Problems of consciousness and free will in analytical philosophy" was held during the expedition. In 2017, Dmitriy Volkov defended his Dr. habil. thesis on "Problems of free will and moral responsibility in analytic philosophy in late XX – early XXI century". In  February 2019, Volkov published his second book "Free will: Illusion or opportunity". In June 2019, Volkov became a professor of the Philosophy Department of MSU. Researches and Main Ideas. In his book "Boston zombie: D.Dennett and his theory of consciousness" Dmitriy Volkov criticized arguments of Dennett, Searle and Vasiliev on intentionality and mental causation. He analyzed the Multiple Drafts Model proposed by Dennett and his critique of the "Cartesian theater" as well as the project of disqualifying qualia. Volkov provided counterarguments against Dennett's thought experiments. Apart from that, the book also addresses the concept of the Self as the  center of narrative gravity. According to Sergey Merzlyakov, scholar of the Scientific Research Lab of the MSU Economics Department, Volkov's book is the most complete and accurate research of Dennett's theory of consciousness.