Phil Jemmett

What is ‘WMG Talks’?

WMG Talks is a project set up in 2019 by Dr Siddartha Khastgir, Head of Verification & Validation (V&V) of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) at WMG, University of Warwick. Since 2019 the WMG Outreach team has supported the project by coaching speakers and finding major events to organise a talk around – such as British Science Week or Tomorrow’s Engineers Week. The purpose of the series is to provide a platform for academics to share their stories, inspire the public and encourage diversity and inclusion in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) arena.

A vast range of speakers have taken part in various events, covering topics from motion sickness in self-driving cars to batteries with superpowers. These technical leaps are impressive and have the potential to shape the future, but without people to use or buy new technologies there is little point in making them, and without the workforce to keep industry advancing in the future, any progress we make now will not be sustainable. That’s where the audience comes in – WMG Talks is building trust in science, encouraging people to take up new technologies, and inspiring young people to go into STEM careers. The audiences have been families at a public event, the families of students who have taken part in an outreach project or students attending a conference.

During the lockdowns in 2021 we also pivoted the approach for WMG Talks and launched our virtual sessions, which were livestreamed into schools. Powered by extensive, collaborative research, our people make a lasting impact on industry, companies and organisations.

Speakers from across WMG’s globally leading research, education and business disciplines share their own experiences and expertise, and work with the WMG Outreach team to develop a story around the subject. From highlighting the principles that underpin the generation of electricity through to teaching cars to sense our world, our experts offer entertaining insights to capture interest and inspire the next generation. All content included in the series has been meticulously considered and refined, from slide design through to the way the story is told, and our experts work with us to ensure the information they do share carries powerful and long-lasting audience impact.

Why do we do it?

Across WMG we can all find something to be inspired or interested by. The work that is done here is shaping the future and aims to improve quality of life for people in all areas of our community. But if the public aren’t aware of new developments in technology, or empowered to try out something new, the potential impacts of our discoveries will never be fully realised.

Sharing the successes of studies with people could encourage them to study STEM qualifications, to become engineers, to believe electric cars could fight climate change, to trust in surgeons who have practised on 3D printed parts, or to recycle batteries, for example.

Where can you find the resources?

The WMG Talks website has a tile for each recorded video. Some of the videos have even been used for lesson plans in schools – one for battery development and one for materials science.

What are our highlights?

Think back to a talk that you remember watching or taking part in. What sticks in your mind? Any moment that you can remember after you’ve left the lecture theatre or closed the webinar link is a moment we should all learn from – because that’s the ultimate aim of any public engagement (or any talk for that matter!), to plant material into your audience’s mind and let that plant flourish.

One thing that I think makes content stick into people’s minds is contextualisation – I think it’s really important to share information in a relatable way and help your audience understand the consequences your work could have on them. If you’re telling a story, where does their character fit into this? Joe Smyth’s talk on self-driving cars encouraged the audience to imagine themselves sat in driverless vehicles and think about what the technology could mean for their own lives.

Or, if you want to explain a challenging concept like the sensors in an autonomous vehicle and how they interact with the world, why not compare the behaviour of the computer to a person? After all, we can all imagine a robot chauffeur driving us around! Amar Gohil gives a fantastic example of this contextualisation as he describes cameras and LIDAR as eyes that can see 360° around the car – all while getting the audience to think about where their own blind spots are.

Katerina Gonos, Project Engineer at WMG noted that working with the outreach team “particularly helped develop skills needed to present for a more general or less expert audience, as specific advice was given such as framing and closing off.”

Another great way to get information across is to make comparisons and use amusing visuals to make the content feel real and not just a fact written on the page. An example of this is Puja Unadkat’s talk about electric vehicles – she uses a mountain zebra as an example of how much the battery pack in an electric vehicle weighs.

And then, when your 10 minutes is up, how do you wrap your talk up? It’s time to go beyond the classic (tired) ‘Thank you, any questions?’ that we’ve all heard too many times. The best example of a finish to a talk is from Russ Hall – I won’t spoil it here, just watch his romantic love letter to steel here.

How can getting involved support you?

Whether you are teaching, research, technical or professional – you will need to present at some point. This process takes a fresh look at presentations and helps to build engagement. The process and tips that speakers learn from taking part will help with building that same engagement in future presentations – whether you are trying to engage a funding body, convince a team to try a new method, teach and inspire a class, or start a new network of collaborators.

Would you like to get involved in the future?

Get in touch via wmgoutreach@warwick.ac.uk and let us know your area of expertise. We’ll keep a list of upcoming events and opportunities and see whether you’re available for our next session. We then work with you at regular intervals to help shape your story, craft your slides, and practise until the talk is polished and perfect.