Falling Walls Falling Walls Science Summit 2022

By exploring the nano-world in real-time with X-rays of PETRA III, a team of KTH (Stockholm) and DESY produced an ultra-strong material that is made of bio-degradable cellulose nanofibres, the essential building blocks of wood. The novel production method transfers the exceptional properties of these nanofibres to the macroscopic, lightweight…

Quantum theory is one of the two revolutions in modern day physics. However, its underlying root is still very much a mystery. Here we revisit the Stern-Gerlach Experiment, a paradigm of quantum theory, and by using modern technology have managed to shed new light on this fundamental spin quantization experiment.…

In this Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation, digital participants had the chance to engage in a live conversation with Joachim von Braun. He talked about his work as an agricultural economist, ways of tackling global hunger and the impact of climate change on global food security. The interview series provided an…

There is currently no known drug treatment for preventing the onset or progression of diabetes mellitus. However, with my team, we have recently discovered a new potential drug receptor, the insulin inhibitory receptor, a breakthrough with the potential to revolutionize diabetes mellitus care. The discovery promises new, clinically-relevant treatments to…

Interferometers are instruments that extract information from the interference of waves in order to perform precise measurements. They are widely used in science and industry, with applications ranging from quantum physics to bio-medicine, as well as astronomy, chemistry and optometry. Nathalie Picqué is a research group leader at the Max-Planck…

PRESENTED BY Boas Bamberger NOMINATED BY Freie Universität Berlin Tags: HR Tech, Online Assessments, Your Skills your Job, Human Resources, Recruiting, Gamification

Cell Block Science (CBS) brings informal science learning to the learning centres of 6 Scottish prisons, and provides a platform for researchers to develop confidence and skills in engagement. Researchers, in collaboration with a project officer, develop and deliver individual sessions, and engagement between sessions is sustained through popular science…

Graphite as it occurs in pencils is a brittle material that does not exactly spur the imagination, but modified into a two-dimensional web of hexagonal structures, it gains extraordinary superpowers. Graphene, a nanomaterial discovered in 2004, is 200 times stronger than steel, conducts both electricity and heat, and is almost…

Foresight Planning – How to Avoid Another 2020 Falling Walls Circle Tables are lending the spotlight to world-leading scientists, science strategists and policy-makers from academia, business and politics discuss how we can apply science, research and innovation to get the world moving again. COVID shocked the world, but was it…

Salah El Sadi wants to provide clean water for irrigation by using unique biofilters to purify water from nitrates and other contaminants without using any chemical additives or energy.

Malaria deaths are rising, in part because the parasites which cause the disease are evolving resistance to our frontline drug treatments. Merryn Fraser argues that we need new ways to target these parasites and suggests taking advantage of essential biological pathways to deliver drugs directly to parasites, improving existing antimalarial…

We are a non-profit, independent, creative digital science communication platform. We create social network based content that is entertaining, rigorous and informative. Our work focuses on making interesting what is important, science. We like to think of Shots de Ciencia as a machine that takes in scientific papers or other…

ImmerseMe is virtually breaking the wall of miscommunication by teaching language and culture through breakthrough technology virtual reality. We’ve partnered with educators around the globe to design a fully interactive platform with 1,000s of authentic lessons across 9 languages. So far 75,000 students have test driven our technology and we’ve…

Dang Huyen Chau of the TU Dresden was the jury’s choice and the overall 1st place winner of the global Falling Walls Lab Finale 2016. Dang presented her research on recycling oil-rich coffee grounds in order to offer an alternative biofuel.

In this Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation, digital participants had the chance to engage in a live conversation with Paweł Rowiński. He talked about his role as Vice-President of the Polish Academy of Science, the process of rebuilding the science landscape of Ukraine, what advice he would give to aspiring scientists…

Ten years ago, Professor Arno Rauschenbeutel was the first to couple laser-trapped atoms with light in glass fibers that are 100 times thinner than a human hair. This achievement was a door opener for the field on quantum nanophotonics. There, one studies the interaction of atoms, molecules, or artificial atoms…

PRESENTED BY Michal Kiezik NOMINATED BY Waseda University Tags: Cryptography, Data Exchange, Information Security, Infosec, Sensitive Data

HOW ELECTORAL PSYCHOLOGY ENLIGHTENS DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP What do citizens think about when they stand in the polling booth? In spite of the latest technological innovations in electoral methods, what goes on in people’s minds while voting has been neglected by academia until now. Michael Bruter, who has published widely in…

Stannie Rameliarison and her team teach fruit and vegetable producers how to dry their crops in order to store them longer and provide them with solar dryers and a market where they can sell the dried products.

Carried out over 10 years by artist-economist duo Chow and Lin, The Poverty Line visually documents the type and amount of food a person living by the poverty line can buy per day in different case-study Countries. The photographic study is based on data analysis and socio-economic research on lowest-income…

How Evolutionary Biology Explains Creativity How many of our friends on Facebook or Twitter are actually posting their own texts and ideas rather than quoting someone else’s? But more importantly, what if we stopped innovating in the real world, becoming more followers than leaders, copiers rather than innovators? Mark Pagel…

A biologist by training, Vincent Widmer holds a master’s degree in Learning in Teaching Technologies as well as a Ph.D. in Educational Sciences from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, where he worked and conducted scientific research in collaborative learning. As co-founder of Beekee,Vincent brings his passion for pedagogy and emerging…

Our cities are heating up nearly twice as fast as the global average. By 2050, the urban population exposed to extreme temperatures is estimated to increase by 800%. This growth will yield a corresponding momentous increase in energy demand for cooling. Meanwhile, our prevailing cooling technology contributes to a warming globe, exacerbating…

The structural change in the Rhenish mining area is of outstanding importance to the region, its neighbouring conurbations, and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its intended transformation towards becoming a source for carbon-neutral energy, sites for closed resource cycles, and new attractive residential, work and leisure opportunities serve as…

Medical Adhesive Revolution has developed a new technology which can seal internal and external wounds. We have developed the only known product capable of both functioning as a hemostat and as a sealant inside the body. To be used by surgeons, it seals wounds and stops bleeding within seconds. As…

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army on February 24, 2022 marked a turning point in contemporary history. The ongoing war has negatively impacted scientific initiatives in the Ukraine, since many Ukrainian scientists were unable to continue their research or had to flee the country. This session aims to…

An ebook service for people with dyslexia, blindness, cerebral palsy, and other reading barriers. Bookshare is a nonprofit global ebook service for people with reading barriers. People with dyslexia, blindness, cerebral palsy, and other reading barriers can customize their experience to suit their learning style and find virtually any book…

Between March 1st and 22nd, nearly 10% of all college-aged users placed pandemic anxiety as the number one concern in life, outstripping other stresses such as heartbreak and job anxiety three-to-one. An unprecedented spike in depression, anxiety and loneliness is paired with a drop in healthier interests, such as physical…

The main objective of Genome Adventures was to sensitise and engage Batswana on genomics and biomedical research through the use of cartoons and capacity building workshops. The Genome Adventures creative team co-created the work with scientists, adolescents and scientists in CAfGEN to try to create content that would engage policy…

Mónica A. Ramos Li is an industrial engineer by training and a social entrepreneur passionate about creating solutions to real problems and empowering people to achieve a better quality of life through education and the development of circular business models. She is also co-founder of Musa, a micro-learning solution.Musa is…

This is a platform where We mentor, advocate and share opportunities for African women in STEM(Science,Technology,Engineering,Mathematics).We are targeting girls in Primary school, High school and undergraduate, who have not yet established an independent STEM carrier. We believe women can play an important role if given the full chance and information…

As a species, we have a remarkable history of scaling up and distributing new technologies among the world’s population. For centuries, books and letters were precious and limited to a small elite, today the printed word is ubiquitous and production costs are negligible. The most recent democratisation of technology took…

PRESENTED BY Kadas Ella Maria NOMINATED BY BIH Innovations of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin Tags: Retinal Imaging, Deeper learning, 3D Modeling, Neurological Disorders, Brain Health, Machine Learning, Healthcare, AI in Healthcare, Monitoring

The breast cancer tumour is one of the fastest-growing tumours and is often diagnosed very late in its growth. X-ray imaging isn’t fast enough here. Hunain Bin Amir’s team has developed a new generation of infrared sensors combined with AI that can be employed in pocket-size gadgets for breast cancer…

PRESENTED BY Asaf Toker NOMINATED BY Tel Aviv University Tags: Tissue Engineering

In third place was the Israeli Shani Elitzur from Technion for her innovative renewable energy concept. Her research focuses on safer and more demand-based hydrogen production, which offers potential for storing electrical energy from aluminium-water reactions.

In cooperation with Stiftung Charité and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Falling Walls was hosting this unique format to connect researchers in the life sciences from all over the world. The symposium gathered the 2021 Winners in the Life Sciences category as well as partners from academia and business to discuss…

The problem of finding reliable medical labelled data for artificial intelligence applications in the healthcare sector affects companies that provide health-tech solutions based on AI. Moustafa Abdelwahap is empowering healthcare technology providers by providing them with a data annotation (labelling) platform that has various tools to help them label needed…

A platform for high-quality journal-independent peer-review in the life sciences. Review Commons was created by EMBO and ASAPbio to provide expert peer review of preprints before they are submitted to a journal. The process is handled by professional scientific editors, who ensure that reviewers are qualified and have no conflicts…

How Intelligent Accountability Can Stop Bureaucratic Excess and Improve Governance Over the last years of financial disasters on a global scale, we often heard the mantra “we need to build trust in the institutions” – this being the very essence of our economic and political systems. Professor O’Neill, a leading…

Nominated by: Matías Peire, GRIDX Presented by: Leandro Ciappina

Agnes Reiner convinced the jury and won the 1st place of the global Falling Walls Lab Finale 2017. Agnes presented her research on novel blood-based biomarkers for the early detection of ovarian cancer.

DreamSpace Academy is a Community Innovation Centre which was created to tackle authentic socio-economic and environmental challenges using Project Based Learning (PBL). Our mission is to empower creative minds through Maker Education, to create innovative solutions using Open Innovation, and ultimately leading them to become successful social entrepreneurs. It is…

An estimated 2 billion people consume insects worldwide, and yet the appeal – and commercial availability – of this foodstock remains very limited, especially in the West. With more than 2,000 edible insect species on this planet, packed with high-quality protein, amino acids, vitamins, calcium, zinc, iron, oils, antioxidants and…

Agriculture accounts for roughly 10 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The d4agrotech research and innovation initiative launched by the province of Lower Austria and the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology aims to make food production more climate-friendly and efficient through digitalisation. In this Falling Walls Round Table, experts…

The nominating institution UCLA on the breakthrough:  The production of ordinary portland cement (OPC), the binding agent used in concrete, accounts for 9% of global CO2 emissions. Our breakthrough technology, CO2Concrete, replaces OPC with a reinvented binder that “absorbs” CO2 upon exposure to flue gas waste streams, reducing CO2 emissions.…

Randall Platt is an Associate Professor of Biological Engineering at the ETH Zurich. Platt studied biomedical engineering at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. In 2011 he obtained an MPhil from Imperial College London in material science and in 2016 a PhD from MIT in biological engineering. After…

In this Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation with Frank Niederländer, digital participants had the chance to discuss and ask questions. The interview series provided an intense personal atmosphere, in which high-level guests, speakers and panelists of the Falling Walls Science Summit 2021 focused on their individual research, career paths and experiences.…

Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, He is the author of four books, including Unruly Waters (2018) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal (2013). His work connects environmental history with the history of migration, with a focus on South Asia, Southeast Asia,…

In this Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation, digital participants had the chance to engage in a live conversation with Lilia Moritz Schwarcz. She talked about her work as a historian and in anthropology in Brazil, how democracies can slowly become autocracies and what can be done to preserve democracies worldwide. The interview…