Falling Walls Lab Berlin 2012 - 3 minutes, 1 day

This is probably the most exciting event I've come across yet for Coference Cast. The Falling Walls lab is one of those fantastic projects, reminiscent of things like FameLab and TED, that allows young researchers to talk about science that interests them but with very limited time and resources and in a way that's fun and entertaining. It encourages competitors to really discover what lies at the heart of their work, reminds them why they do it, why they love it and offers fantastic opportunities to meet a stunning range of others with an enthusiastic passion for science.

To wrap up 2012, I've collected a few posts about the Falling Walls Lab and the conference that followed, that shows the joy that those involved feel for this project and will hopefully encourage others to get involved in 2013. First, one of the organisers, Felix Rundel, introdues the history and concept behind the lab. In the coming days we'll hear from some of the finalists about how they got involved and what it was like to succeed.

Name: Felix Rundel

Date: 8th November 2012

Location: Radialsystem, Berlin, Germany

Website: http://falling-walls.com/lab/

If you've ever tried to reduce your most essential ideas and professional ups and downs of your career into a three-minute story, you may know what a challenging task it can be to prepare a flash talk. No room for technical details or background information - this kind of three-minute conference talk will only give you enough time to address the very essence of your topic. What business lingo calls "the elevator pitch" - an extremely short and catchy sales talk - is one of the underlying elements of the Falling Walls Lab.

The Lab is an interdisciplinary meeting place for young researchers, entrepreneurs and innovators from a wide range of fields and backgrounds. It started as an experiment as part of the 2011 Falling Walls Conference (www.falling-walls.com) - an international meeting of top-class researchers who speak about their breakthroughs in 15 minutes each. The Lab gathers 100 young academics and professionals in Berlin, where they share their breakthroughs, innovations and ideas for change. All presentations take place in one day only. Entrants are judged by a distinguished jury from academia, research institutions and business on the basis of their relevance and styles of presentation, with prizes for the three most outstanding talks.

Participants were selected at preliminary Labs in Zurich, Vienna, Cologne and Munich, as well as Johannesburg and São Paulo. The winners of each session were invited to travel to Berlin for the Final Lab, followed by the conference. From over 600 entrants, the 100 finalists all received scholarships, provided by A.T. Kearney, which included one night's stay in Berlin and a ticket for the Falling Walls Conference. At this year's Lab, the participating scholars represented 38 nations, a myriad of different topics and ideas - and each of them started out with only 3 minutes to impress.

Whilst the Lab breeds competition, its main purpose is to build bridges between the most varied disciplines - ranging from ecological farming and heritage protection to international trade law and astrophysics. In a number of cases, the new contacts established during the two days led to cooperation in projects and lasting partnerships.

In order to make their ideas understandable to a non-expert audience, scholars really have to get to the heart of their topics. The Lab encourages this and helps people find new exciting angles on the familiar. Through this researchers and professionals find a platform to communicate about their findings and projects with extraordinary enthusiasm, passion and clarity.

The winning talks from Mai-Thi Nguyen-Kim (MIT/RWTH Aachen University, pictured centre), Quirin Kainz (University of Regensburg, pictured left) and Thomas Rippel (The Organic Standard, pictured right) can be viewed online at http://falling-walls.com/lab/berlin2012/. This year, for the first time, the winners were invited to make their presentations again at the Falling Walls Conference. Even more than the cash prize for winning the Lab, it seemed that the speaker slot at the Conference was the real prize. Needless to say that all three made great ambassadors for the Lab and left a lasting impression on the esteemed audience of more than 600 decision makers and science representatives from across the globe.

On the Falling Walls website (falling-walls.com/livestream), you can watch the winners' conference talks on video - they can be found in the third session of the Conference - starting at 13:30 min with the Lab's introduction video. Direct link: new.livestream.com/fallingwalls/fw2012/videos/6002988

More information on the Falling Walls Lab 2012, the participants and topics, a video trailer and a photo gallery at: falling-walls.com/lab

For further information, please write an email to: lab@falling-walls.com

Felix Rundel, Falling Walls Foundation, Berlin

(Copyright for the images above, showing the 100 competitors and the three winners, is held by the Falling Walls Foundation).