ScienceComm’18 India

swissnex India, in partnership with National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and Science et Cite, brings you ScienceComm’18 India, a daylong conference with experts from Switzerland and India for engaging talks and workshops on the theme ‘scientainment’ – science + entertainment.

The idea of scientainment is to communicate science in an entertaining manner to make it engaging and enjoyable. The conference would bring in experts who would give insights on the power of platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, etc. in creating engaging scientific content. It would explore the potential of avenues such as digital storytelling, theatre, and gaming and stand up comedy for science communication.

Know your sessions and speakers –

Learning while laughing: Transforming science and scientists through play
By Adria LeBoeuf & Samuel Lagier

The Catalyst trains scientists to be better communicators and create new entertainment for the public about science. In this session you’ll learn how complex scientific concepts can be communicated through the arts and you’ll get to do some learning while laughing as Adria and Sam introduce you to how improvisation can be used to facilitate creativity, collaboration and communication.

Adria is a practicing biologist (currently at the Weizmann Institute), a trainer for scientific presentation skills (HEC Lausanne) and the founder and strategic director of The Catalyst (thecatalyst.ch). With a PhD in Biophysics from Rockefeller University, she now studies long-term distributed decision making in ant colonies. In addition to research, she has been combining her scientific and storytelling skillsets to create science-based entertainment in the form of plays, films and immersive games since 2011. Adria founded The Catalyst, a non-profit creating new media about science and teaching scientists to be better communicators through theatre skills.

Adria LeBoeuf

Scientist and Science Communicator

Dr Samuel Lagier is a multi-talented scientist and improviser. He teaches presentation skills to experts and curates, coaches and hosts the TEDxLausanne conference since 2012. He manages the Geneva branch of the Catalyst theatre company which creates new media to communicate science. He performs and teaches improv to individuals and applied improv to corporate clients with the Renegade Saints. In his scientific career, Dr Lagier studied sensory perception in the normal and in the schizophrenic brain, in France, the United States and in Switzerland

Samuel Lagier

Scientist and Public Speaking Expert

Sustaining interest and engagement in fundamental research. How we do it at CERN.
By Ana Godinho

After hitting the limelight in 2008, when the the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was switched on, and again in 2012, with the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson, nicknamed “the God particle”, the challenge for CERN, European laboratory for particle physics is to sustain the level of interest and engagement in it’s research and in particle physics. In this talk, Ana will describe how CERN is exploring different approaches to telling it’s stories (text, image, virtual and augmented reality, hands-on activities) and adapting them to the range of communication channels at their disposal (web and social media, exhibitions, public events, visits, education activities), for different audiences.

Ana is a scientist turned communicator. She holds a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology from the University of London, and was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at King’s College London. She has an MSc in Science Communication from the Open University (UK). Before joining CERN, Ana was Head of Communications at the Portuguese national funding agency for science and research and previously held posts in science communication at biomedical research centres in Portugal and in the UK. Ana has presented her work at international science communication conferences, co-authored papers, a children’s book of science experiments and has collaborated in outreach projects in Europe, Africa and Brazil.

Ana Godinho

Head of Education, Communications and Outreach at CERN

Talking funny: Bringing humour in your presentation
By Jagdish Chaturvedi

Jagdish is known for his uncanny knack of bringing witty humour into his talks that makes it an engaging experience to listen to and bring back memorable takeaways. In this interactive session, Jagdish will share some practical tips and tricks to help you bring appropriate humour into your public presentations and speeches. Learn from a seasoned comedian and public speaker, the little secrets that can make you an impactful and memorable speaker.

Jagdish Chaturvedi trained at St. John’s Medical College and Hospital, Bangalore (2009-2011), a Stanford-India Biodesign (SIB) Fellow 2012, and holds an MBA degree in Entrepreneurship and Hospital Management (NIBM,2013). He is currently Director, Clinical Innovations and Partnerships at Innaccel Technologies Private Limited. Since 2010, he has co-invented and developed 18 affordable medical devices addressing the unmet needs in the Indian healthcare system. He is recognized as one of the 35 innovators under the age of 35 by the MIT technology review 2016. He is also a stand-up comedian, popularized by his YouTube channel “Jagdish Chaturvedi” and is the author of the best selling book on medical device innovations called “Inventing Medical Devices – A perspective from India”, ” The benefits of failing successfully” and “One year of Stand up comedy”.

Jagdish Chaturvedi

ENT surgeon, innovator, author and stand up comedian

Science through Images: From Woodcut Engravings to Viral Memes
By Leslee Lazar

Whether scientists communicate to other scientists or the society at large, they rely on visual information to tell their story. With increasing complexity in data and narratives, new types of visualizations are invented; multidimensional data on the web browsers to comic strips for health awareness. How do these visual representations influence the dissemination of the message? Do they help to accurately represent the science, or does it create misinformation? Leslee will explore how visual representations influences the scientific narrative, giving examples from history and in our “post-truth” world. He will also give some tips and ideas on how to communicate your science visually.

Leslee Lazar is a cognitive neuroscientist and a visual artist. He uses illustrations, graphic design, infographics, collages and photography to tell complex stories. He is also currently a visiting faculty at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar, where he works on perception of art, design cognition, cultural cognition and communication design. Leslee has a PhD in Neuroscience from National Brain Research Centre (India) and post-doctoral research experience from Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA).

Leslee Lazar

Cognitive Neuroscientist and Visual Artist

The Science Booster – Bringing Science to Crowdfunding
By Luc Henry

Everybody loves science and technology. But why can only researchers and engineers be part of the fun of discovering or inventing new stuff? Because science is difficult, dangerous and expensive. Or is it really? Science and innovation do not always require big investments. Crowdfunding has become a popular way to help people launch initiatives that would otherwise never have been funded. This holds especially true for the arts and for innovation. As science still lacks resources dedicated to short-term and small-scale projects, could crowdfunding be a new way of supporting unconventional initiatives? Through an interactive session, Luc Henry will highlight the role of crowdfunding in supporting scientific discoveries and their communication to the public. He will discuss the opportunities, myths and realities behind the potential impact of crowdfunding platforms for science.

Luc Henry spent the past ten years exploring science in various ways and places around Europe. Three years ago, he co-founded the DIY biology initiative Hackuarium in Renens, Switzerland, to give access to research tools to anyone and promote citizen sciences. He left his research activities to become the Managing Editor of the European science magazine Technologist, then worked at the Swiss National Science Foundation before taking his actual position as an advisor to the President of EPFL. Luc holds a PhD in chemical biology from the University of Oxford.

Luc Henry

Scientific Advisor at EPFL

Science and Fun? Finding The Intersection.
By Rajesh Tahil

Podcasts have gained great popularity in the US, and other geographies with large numbers of people spending many hours a week as they commute, work or cook listening to their favourite shows. In anticipation of an emerging market of young and mobile listeners in India, The Intersection is a ‘science’ podcast that attempts to take complex topics from science and present it in a simple, engaging and entertaining way. Through this session, Rajesh will talk about the process of creating The Intersection and will outline how a podcast can be a great medium to make science fun and entertaining.

Rajesh Tahil is the founder of Audiomatic, one of India’s first podcast networks. Audiomatic prides itself on its high-quality, narrative podcasts that are produced and presented by some of the best known names in Indian journalism. Rajesh has worked in media and communications for over two decades during which he has launched an FM radio network, headed programming for a youth/music brand, been the Publisher of a daily tabloid and headed creative and content for a live-video digital platform. He is passionate about podcasts as a medium of oral storytelling and is dedicated to exploring its full potential.

Rajesh Tahil

Co-founder of Audiomatic Podcasts

Shoot for Science! Telling stories through the lens.
By Prasenjeet Yadav

Photography is one of the most influential visual mediums which is easily accessible to the broader audience. In this session, Prasenjeet will show you how to harness the power of photography to build story that can help communicate a scientific concept or a project in an easy to understand manner. The idea of this session is not to make you photographers, but to help you become visually literate, and introduce you to the concept of ‘Science Photography’.

Prasenjeet Yadav holds a degree in molecular biology and has pursued research in molecular ecology for several years at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore. Early in his career, he realised that his passion lay in storytelling. He now combines his experience in research with his photography skills to popularise ecology and conservation science in the wider society. Prasenjeet focuses on integrating science deeply into his photo series. He chooses overlooked subjects, landscapes, and species, and finds ways to develop engaging and accessible photos. Prasenjeet is a founding member of 'Shoot for Science' which is an initiative to train academic researchers in science communication.

Prasenjeet Yadav

Researcher, National Geographic Explorer and Photographer

Peek into our video and photos for what we brought to the spotlight at Science Comm’17!

ScienceComm’18 India

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ScienceComm'17 India

Citizen Science - An Exhibition on Participatory Research