The 2021 Women and Gender in Development Virtual Conference will begin next week, during which I will announce the winners of the 4 Minute Student Flashtalks (4MFlashTalks) competition. This contest has two phases. The first included nine contestants who submitted videos that were part of a jury-judged competition. Two of the videos were selected as winners based on 10 criteria relating to (1) comprehension and context and (2) communication. I will announce these two winners at 11:50am on Feb 25 during the conference.

After concluding the first phase of the competition, the jury decided to invite all the students who submitted videos to a virtual Communicating Science Workshop at Virginia Tech. After carefully reviewing the nine videos, we realized our competition guidance had been too constraining and wanted to provide students with more freedom on how they communicated their research to a general audience. The workshop encouraged students to be personal, direct, spontaneous, responsive, and emotionally expressive. It also promoted the need to develop a story narrative that explains why their research is important to the themselves, their field of study, and the world.

Five of the students re-recorded their presentations (below) for the second phase of the competition – a People’s Choice award. Conference attendees can vote for their favorite video here. I will also announce the People’s Choice winner on Feb 25.

About the 4MFlashTalks: The 4MFlashTalks is a virtual asynchronous competition that promotes student engagement by providing opportunities to graduate students who have completed data collection for their research, to present their work through a brief 4 minute presentation. It is inspired by the 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) research communication competition developed by the University of Queensland in Australia and held in academic institutions around the world. The 4MFlashTalks is an experience intended to communicate research to a non-expert audience in a simple, concise, and articulate manner. This event in the virtual WGD Conference aims to provide a space where all attendees (students, faculty, practitioners, leaders, others) from around the country and the world can learn and connect with future professionals.