SCIENCE OUTSIDE THE BOX-VOLUME I

 

Sint-Jacobskapel, Nijmegen, 2 June 2017

 

Click here for the official announcement

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What would you do now if everything would be possible? Or if that is too hard to imagine, what would you do if you won the lottery? We all have dreams of doing something that means a lot to us, but that often seems unreal and far out of reach. 

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With 40 people attending the first Science outside the Box event, organized by Lih Lah Yoga and the Radboudumc Postdoc Initiative, the Sint-Jacobs chapel was packed, yet provided an atmosphere to talk openly about dreams. The evening was hosted by Cindy Dieteren and started off with a short introduction about the goals of this meeting: to entertain, connect and inspire scientists, and facilitate open discussions, personal reflection and new initiatives that are close to their heart and dreams. She told that in 2013, when she was working for 3 months in Padova and in the middle of the selection procedure for a Veni-grant, no way she anticipated to follow a yoga teacher training 3 years later. 

The opening speaker, Eligio F. Ianetti explained that he experienced a feeling of isolation and loneliness at a certain phase during his PhD-project. This feeling provided him the energy to set up Respora, a platform that facilitates connecting to experts on a certain topic and sharing knowledge and skills in an easy way. He made clear that it was essential to team up with 3 other scientists, alone he would not have reached as far as he did now. 

The following speaker blew the audience away with beautiful pictures of her and others on a boat on the blue sea with clear skies. Irene Roozen is the owner of Maxim-plus, a company that organizes business trips on the water. She clarified why she decided to quit her PhD-project, and talked about her previous work on a sailing ship for disabled people. And yes, sometimes you just need luck! With her partner, who decided to sell his company, she was able to buy her own boat and make an hotel at the sea.

Gerard Cadafalch, CEO of Eurokite, did not go into details about himself or his company, but brought the audience concrete learning points that brought him to the point he is now. One wise advice was to not decide anything without being enough informed. Another one was to act only on what you control. There was a hearable reaction from the audience, when he told that he thought social sciences were bullsh*t....but then he continued and acknowledged that trying to understand your own and other people's behavior is actual vital for running a company. Asking questions is much more powerful than hearing yourself talk all the time. 

During a short break, people had time to interact with others while having a drink and a snack in the space on the beautiful wooden attic of the chapel, surrounded by artworks. 

Then Hila Moscovich, owner of the feel-free clinic and accompanied by her sweet dog Lola, continued the meeting. She opened her lecture by saying that she used to be the most die-hard critical scientist, but now she is...a witch! But still a scientist too! Her personal story and explanation of science in the alternative medicine field opened up a lively discussion in the chapel. The scheduled time was limiting, but many people went to talk with Hila afterwards. Clearly this topic brought a lot of motion!

Finally, Ivan Lorenzo summed up at the beginning of his talk, that every speaker was so different this evening, yet he could feel a connection with all of them, because in every story he found similarities with his own. He recognized the feeling of PhD-loneliness of Eligio, the love for the sea of Irene, the challenges of starting a company by Gerard, and the will to be open for things that are weird but that we do not yet understand as explained by Hila. Ivan spoke about  his unconventional steps in his career path as a scientist that somehow connect. For many years he developed ideas to make art with science. When he shared them with his housemates, 4bluecells came to life. So teaming up was also for him important to make this step. We got a glimpse of the refinement in a recent artwork with blood cells projected on the screen compared to an early one.

Since the audience was very active in asking questions after each talk, there was little time left for the planned forum discussion afterwards. At the closure, one of the people in the audience asked when the next "Science outside the box" will be. At this moment there is no new date set, but it is planned for autumn 2017! Hope to see you there again!