Earlier this week, this year’s CERN openlab summer students presented their work in two dedicated public ‘lighting talk’ sessions. In 5-minute presentations, each student explained the technical challenges they have faced and described the results of what they have been working on for the nine weeks they have spent at CERN. 

Projects presented covered a diverse range of topics, including high-performance computing,  big data, visualisation, and machine learning. The lightning talks were split into two sessions. A panel composed of CERN IT department experts and the audience voted for their three preferred talks from each session.

Following careful deliberation by the judges, Ahmad Hesam's presentation on human brain development, was selected as the overall winner for 2016. “I was new to both the ROOT and the BioDynaMo platforms that were central to my project, so I needed to work hard to get acquainted with these, says Hesam. “It’s been a real challenge, but it’s definitely been worth it. I’ve learnt a lot!”

Find out more about the presentations, and the winners, on the CERN openlab website