Last night five scientists researching different aspects of antimicrobials took to the floor at the FIS Conference at the ICC in Birmingham to take part in I’m a Scientist Live: Drugs, Bugs and Infections.
Photo courtesy of @biologyatkinge1
Our five were:
Photo courtesy of @PharmaMix
30 mins later with time running out, Simon brought the event to a climax by asking the scientists to spend 30seconds telling the audience why they should get the votes and the winner’s trophy. The vote that followed confirmed that Anne Marie’s promotion of the IMI’s Summer School for Year 12 students was enough to edge her into the lead and win the vote.
Some numbers:
181 tickets ordered.
105 attendees on the evening (105 voting handsets were used).
Over half the audience were students evenly split between schools and undergraduates. This means a lot of the students who asked for tickets failed to show. We had a capacity of 150 for the evening with a maximum limit of 200 for the room. Whilst we expected some dropout we are surprised by the level of no-shows. We will need to over-book more heavily in future.
Voting was close. Only one vote separated Anne-Marie from the scientist who was second-placed. We discussed what to do in case of a tie beforehand, but were clear it wouldn’t end up as a draw. We need to take those plans more seriously in future.
Having the electronic voting cards allows us to ask some immediate evaluation questions. A healthy majority enjoyed the show and learnt from our panellists. A slightly smaller majority have caught the antimicrobial bug.
What else did we learn/have confirmed from last night?
- Allowing a 30 minute turnaround between a lecture and IASLive with only one sound engineer is a little optimistic.
- We should brief participants that they will be using a lapel mic and that they therefore need a lapel.
- Some sort of stage helps if the audience are on the same level
- Enthusiasm and energy will give rise to a decent discussion whatever the subject.
