These are the winning ideas at this year’s Falling Walls Lab Finale
Berlin, 9 November 2018. Yesterday at the Falling Walls Lab Finale in Berlin,100 participants from 57 countries presented their current research projects, ideas and initiatives in just three minutes each. The following three finalists impressed both the interdisciplinary jury and the audience and were named “Falling Walls Young Innovators of the Year 2018”.
- The jury’s top choice and the winner of the 2018 Falling Walls Lab is Dr. Ahmed Ghazi (University of Rochester Medical Center) from Bahrain. In his presentation “Breaking the Wall of Surgical Errors” he presents a solution to mistakes in operating rooms: Processes that cast a hydrogel into a series of 3D printed injection molds designed from patient imaging data that has the ability to create intricate realistic human organs suitable for surgical rehearsal.
- The second prize went to Adam Fulop (Budapest University of Technology) from Hungary. His idea “Breaking the Wall of Braille Literacy” is about Braille reader gloves with which any printed text can be read as Braille in real-time.
- The third prize goes to Ankita Poudyal (Auckland University of Technology) from Nepal. Her presentation “Breaking the Wall of Inefficient Filters” convinced the jury with the idea for the next generation of Nano-fiber filters.
The Audience Prize went to Marketa Klicova (Technical University Liberec) from Czech Republic.
The winners were selected by a distinguished jury of scientists and entrepreneurs, headed by the astronaut and former French research minister Dr. Claudie Haigneré. “We have been impressed and inspired by the participant’s strength of conviction to push for breakthroughs, they gave us hope this afternoon for the future with the diversity of their proposals”, says Dr Haigneré.
Today on 9 Novmeber the three winners of the Falling Walls Lab Finale will have the chance to present their ideas once again at the international Falling Walls Conference in front of over 700 guests.
Over 3000 applications from all over the world were submitted to participate in Falling Walls Labs this year, with new initiatives and research projects from the humanities, social sciences, engineering, business and natural sciences.
This year, prior to the Lab Finale in Berlin, 77 qualifying events were held in 57 countries, at institutions such as Stanford University (USA), ETH Zürich (Switzerland), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and many more. All the winners travelled to the Finale in Berlin. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), with support from the German Federal Foreign Office, supported the participation of emerging scientists and researchers who were selected at international qualifying events at 33 DAAD Regional Offices and German Houses of Research and Innovation.
The Falling Walls Lab aims to advance scientific and entrepreneurial visions and to initiate and support exchange between aspiring scientists and researchers and young professionals across disciplines.
About the Falling Walls Foundation
The Falling Walls Foundation is a non-profit organisation in Berlin which holds the international Falling Walls Conference each year on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the Conference, around 20 leading scientists from around the world are each given 15 minutes to present their breakthroughs in the natural and social sciences, business and technology. The Falling Walls Foundation also coordinates the Berlin Science Week. For the third year in a row, the event will bring scientists from institutions all over the world to Berlin from 1 to 10 November. The Falling Walls Foundation is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, the Robert Bosch Stiftung and the Berlin Senate, as well as by numerous scientific institutions, foundations and companies. More information can be found at www.falling-walls.com.
Press contact
Julia Rodriguez
Falling Walls Foundation gGmbH
Kochstraße 6-7
10969 Berlin
Tel: +49 30 60 988 39 74
Fax: +49 30 60 988 39 79
press@falling-walls.com