YCN Student Pitch Contest "Pitch me your idea"

The 2021 YCN Workshop “Pitch me your idea” was organized online, in Gather Town and Webex, by the YCN Committee members and the ECerS Secretariat from 15th to 17th June 2021.

77 participants registered to this event, coming from 29 countries, and 24 people among them compeeted in the Pitch Contest.

The event started with tests in the system on Tuesday afternoon and then, in the evening, the Welcome Party was organized in Gather Town.

There were 2 invited speakers:

• On Wednesday 16th June, Prof. Paula Vilarinho from CICECO, University of Aveiro, Portugal has answered to those questions “Is there a philosophy of success? How to apply it to research?”.
• Then on Thursday 17th June, Dr Peter Mitchell, International communications consultant based in Russia, presented “Career planning: Your CV for your Success.”.

The award ceremony took place on Thursday 17th June at the end of the afternoon, after a long and hard deliberation during which the evaluation of the 20 members of the jury were analyzed and compared by the YCN Committee.

First place: Vojtěch Nečina

from the University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Czech Republic.

“The powder of Fluoride Sintering Additive”

Second place: Moritz Weiẞ

from KIT – MVM AME, Karlsruhe, Germany

“FastCast”

Third place: Oana-Andreea Condurache

from Electronic Ceramics Department, Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

“Investigation of ferroelectric domain walls down to the atomic scale”

Fourth place: Huyra Araujo

Federal Institute of Sao Paulo - IFSP, Hortolandia, Brasil

“A Microstructure Master Curve”

The 4 winners get free registration to the main ECerS event in Krakow 2022, Poland as well as:

• 500 euros for 1st Winner and he will make again his presentation during the Krakow 2022 YCN student’s evening.
• 300 euros for 2nd Winner 
• 200 euros for 3rd Winner   

Pitching is a very hard thing to do and in only 5 minutes. Especially for the researchers who are used to conference talks. However, in pitching we need to change the way of presenting.

Here is what has been learned these days from the comments and pitches of the jury:

• Simplicity: the highly positive feedback from jury was given to the simple presentations with a clear and understanding message
• Effective: use the animations, videos, images, catchy sentences and words to attract your public
• Dynamic: don’t speak in monotone way, use your voice as a tool

         - be prepared to answer hard questions about the impact of the research, money, possible problems…

         - and for the end always be aware who is a audience, as it is not the same do we present to the researchers, industrials, students etc.

This event was sponsored by the JECS Trust.