Falling Walls Lab 2022
Three minutes was all it took!
DWIH San Francisco was delighted to host the Falling Walls Lab for the first time, a world-class pitch competition and networking forum for students, researchers, and early-career scientists of all disciplines. This year, we received a record-breaking 29 applicants from universities all across the Bay Area, and invited 16 finalists to pitch their innovative ideas that showcased a breakthrough that creates a positive impact on science and society.
Our Lab took place at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, an ideal location just steps from the UC Berkeley campus; we were sponsored by the German Consulate General in San Francisco, EURAXESS, and Schoolab. We invited seven interdisciplinary jury members to assess the pitches and breakthrough ideas to select three winners.
Our first place winner, Vishnu Sunil, engineered a bandage to reduce bleeding in patients suffering wounds before they reach the hospital. He is a postdoc fellow at Novartis. Our second place winner, Marius Wiggert, is researching novel techniques to harness the power of seaweed to accelerate nature’s own way of removing carbon for millenia. He is a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley.
Our third place winner, Calton Kong, is developing a cutting-edge method of artificial photosynthesis to address climate change. He is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley.
The international network of Falling Walls Labs includes renowned academic institutions from over 60 countries. The ETH Zürich, National University of Singapore, and University of Cape Town are only a few of the universities that have recently participated in the Falling Walls Lab program.
Falling Walls Lab is organized by the Falling Walls Foundation and generously funded by Berlin’s Natural History Museum (global finale), and Google and Huawei (international Labs). It is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Learn more about the project: https://falling-walls.com/lab/
