Metin Sitti is working on wireless miniature medical robots that can be used for local on-demand drug delivery, fluid pumping, biopsy, and vessel clogging. At Falling Walls, Sitti gave insights into his research, explained how these tiny robots function, and presented them live.

I work on many projects that address digital science education, particularly working with overlooked communities. I work primarily in various classrooms around the world, designing, building, testing, and researching adaptive and interactive science pedagogies, particularly ones that contain a digital component. This had led to many innovations in digital science…

Promotion of gender equality drives innovation both in science and in industrial organisations. However, we often fail to put scientific knowledge into practice. This Falling Walls Circle Plenary Table explores the following questions: How to implement gender equality to increase the quality of innovation? And who needs to change: decision…

Joanna Sadowska is addressing the limited regenerative capabilities of the human body by using nanomedicines and gene therapies to teach cells how to repair injured tissues and organs. Her approach involves creating lab-grown tissues like skin and bone with unique implants that interact with cells, enhancing their repair mechanisms, and…

Gerhard Widmer talked about what makes music come alive, what it means for a computer to learn fundamental principles of expressive (piano) performance, and how, by using this learned knowledge, it can contribute to expressive music making – not as a replacement for human pianists, but as a musical companion.

Abdullah Al Ghailani is addressing the challenges of late dementia detection, proposing an AI-based tool called CognICA for early diagnosis to enhance healthcare outcomes and well-being. His cross-sectional study in the Omani population aims to validate and assess the acceptability of AI-based screening tools, evaluating their effectiveness in improving early…

How a Nanotech Toolbox Can Revolutionise Medicine and Energy Storage The sheet of paper this text is printed on is about 100,000 nanometers thick and one hair on your head is about 50,000 nanometers wide. In our everyday experience, these are some of the smallest objects we are able to…

The nominating institute University of Zurich on the breakthrough: While mutualism was already acknowledged by Darwin, almost all studies have focused on highly specialized, one-on-one interactions. This misses the fact that mutualism shapes networks of interdependencies involving dozens of species. Bascompte’s work fills this gap by showing that the structure…

Robert Kaczmarczyk: Breaking the Wall to democratised AI – Falling Walls Science Summit 2023 As artificial intelligence continues to advance at a rapid pace, questions about its creators, owners, and accessibility have become paramount in our collective consciousness. The rapid transformation of our world by AI technology raises concerns about…

Miniaturizing engines and machines to sizes less than a few millimetres remains an unmet challenge because of the complexity of their design and their fundamental physics that does not favor down-sizing. Materials that respond like muscles by changing their shape or size on demand offer an alternative way to power…