Berlin, 8 November 2019. One of the most ambitious and engaging conferences, the Falling Walls Lab gathered together 100 best young researchers from 63 nations to share their ideas in 3-minute pitches. This year Skoltech was represented by CEST PhD Student Andrey Churkin.
For Andrey, the journey to the Falling Walls finals started almost half a year before when he applied for the Moscow stage in May 2019. He prepared a bright talk based on his thesis and Cooperative Game Theory applications in power systems. Among the 16 contestants, Andrey got the second place and a chance to represent Moscow at the Berlin’s finale: https://www.skoltech.ru/en/2019/05/falling-walls-lab-skoltech/
The next several months were full of rehearsals and slides polishing. It was absolutely necessary to make the 3-minute speech clear and encouraging. In his talk “Breaking the Wall of Energy Cooperation”, Andrey put an emphasis on international energy trade issues and possible solutions. He was the only person with such a high-level technical and economic analysis presented.
On day X, Andrey represented Moscow together with Daria Buklesheva (Moscow State University): https://www.skoltech.ru/en/2019/11/falling-walls-lab-berlin-grand-finale/
His report #96 got positive feedback from the jury. The full video of the speech is available online: https://youtu.be/ZQTU5DshQAs
Even though not getting a prize, it was a great honor and experience for Andrey to contribute to the event. We hope that his example would motivate more students to participate in the following Falling Walls events and similar competitions.
The winners of the Falling Walls Lab 2019 Finale:
1st Place: Rhys Pirie, Australia, “Breaking the Walls of Glass”
2nd Place: Mariëlle van Kooten, Netherlands, “Breaking the Walls of Unlabeled Data”
3rd Place: Rushabh Chheda, India, “Breaking the Walls of Affordable Housing and Waste Plastic”