Student Talks, a conference designed to give students and early career professionals a chance to share their knowledge with the world is set to host its first ever national conference in UCD on Wednesday, March 9th.
Maria Diaz, UCD student ambassador for Student Talks, called the event a “conference series wherein early career professionals and students from a wide array of disciplines come together to share ideas, knowledge, and experience.” She described it as “Ted Talks for students.”
Over fifty students applied to give a talk at the event. Sixteen of these have been chosen to give six minute talks on a subject of their choosing. A panel of judges will award one of them with the Student Talks 2016 prize.
Alongside the students, a number of invited speakers will also give talks on the day. Confirmed guests include Lynn Ruane, President of Trinity College Dublin Student’s Union, Alex Musgrave of Dog Day Media, and UCD’s Dr Brendan Rooney, who lectures in the School of Psychology.
Diaz spoke of the event’s wide appeal; “the conference aims to create a welcoming atmosphere, wherein every subject is up for discussion, fostering inspiration and motivation amongst students of various disciplines, and thus celebrating diversity. Therefore, the speakers are multidisciplinary, from science to the humanities.”
Student Talks first started off as a business idea, and won the NUI Galway Student Enterprise Award back in 2014. Since then, it has expanded, with the UCD conference set to be their first national event. Attendees will be travelling from other universities; students from NUI Maynooth and Dublin City University (DCU) have already reserved tickets for the conference.
The organisers are still looking for volunteers to help on the day. Those who may be interested can get more information on www.studenttalks.ie, or contact Diaz at mariaucd@studenttalks.ie.
- Cian Carton, News Editor
This article originally appeared in Volume 29, Issue 9. Published February 29th 2016.
