Lightning Talk Competition

The QuakeCoRE Lightning Talk Competition is a competition that aims to promote communication in risk-related topic. QERC members from all chapters compete every year in regional heats. The final is held during the QuakeCoRE annual meeting. The competition offers great visibility to participants' research. Judges are selected by QuakeCoRE leadership team based on a shortlist compiled by QERC board members. The competition deadlines are announced on the chapter calendars.

Goals

• Broadcast their research to a broader audience (not just their department, hence potential employers)
• Enhance their communication capabilities (able to efficiently communicate complex ideas to non-specialists)
• Enhance their presentation skills (word choices and visual communication)
• Get an award from an internationally-recognized institution - QuakeCoRE -, which will boost their resume.
• Be able to 'elevator-speech' their research topic (which is extremely useful during job interviews)

Rules

• 5 slides max (including the title slide)
• 5 minutes max
• Q&A of 2 minutes max at the end of the 5 minutes
• No transition, animation (incl. but not limited to gif) or movie in the slide
• All winners (from qualif. and final) are announced by QuakeCoRE leadership team (not the chapters themselves)
• Score sheets won't be given back to candidates

Assessment criteria

• Communication: Was the thesis topic and its significance communicated in language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience?
• Comprehension: Did the presentation help the audience understand the research?
• Engagement: Did the presentation make the audience want to know more?

About the judges

• General rule: no member of the supervisory teams
• Panels selected by QuakeCoRE leadership team from lists proposed by QuakeCoRE chapters
• Local panel: 1 Eng./Sci./Geo. + 1 Manag./Econ./Social + 1 Non-academic
• Final panel: same composition but from international QAM participants