“Do you know someone who has or had dementia? Please raise your hands.” A lot of hands go up. That is not surprising, because 1.5% of Danes have dementia symptoms, says Industrial PhD student Mark Henney from DTU Compute and the startup OptoCeutics ApS.
He has just entered the stage with a square light box/lamp. Over the next few minutes, Mark Henney presents his research. He shows images of a PET scan of a healthy brain and a sick brain, explaining that we currently don’t have a cure for Alzheimer’s, which is a disease that causes dementia.
Studies have shown that 40 Hz light stimulation can activate the brain’s microglia, which are cells that help remove harmful proteins like beta-amyloid associated with Alzheimer’s, thereby delaying the progression of the disease. However, flickering, changing lights can cause discomfort and epileptic seizures. This is where Mark Henney and his colleagues’ work comes into play. Mark Henney’s research is focused on the use of Visual Gamma Brain Stimulation for Alzheimer's Disease. In the cross section between brain stimulation, electroencephalography brain imaging, and scientific computing, he is searching for a way to provide novel personalised medicine.
Together with the university, the startup has developed a lamp with “invisible spectral flicker,” so the lamp still emits light at 40 Hz, but the eye cannot perceive the flicker. This way, brain stimulation can still be used, Mark Henney explains. And then he demonstrates the lamp for everyone and sums up. Short, understandable and visual. After the talk, a panel of judges, including the Head of Department at DTU Compute, Professor Jan Madsen, asks a few questions.
Before and after Mark Henney’s presentation, four other PhD students from Aalborg University, Aarhus University, University of Copenhagen, Roskilde University, and IT University of Copenhagen presented their research.
Showcasing cool and novel research at Danish computer science | IT departments
This is the first time that the deep-tech festival Digital Tech Summit tried out this format with PhD students showcasing some of the cool and novel research done by young academics at Danish computer science | IT departments. The event is supported by DIREC - Digital Research Centre Denmark.
It is reminiscent of the startup stage at the same event, where startups pitch their business ideas. The format is also known in Denmark from, for example, the PhD Cup, provided yearly by DR and Dagbladet Information.
At the “PhD Power Hour session - 5-minute lightning talks,” the students are allowed to unfold creatively and play with communication in a completely different way than they normally would at conferences. The “fast-paced” format aims to create informal overviews and perspectives of the projects - even though some technical details (of course) are welcome.
Mark Henney likes the challenge:
“It reminds me a bit of what we practiced in our communication course, which is mandatory for PhD students. It’s important to be able to communicate your research. And it’s really cool to break everything down and kind of start over to find a way to communicate it to a broad audience, some of whom are not familiar with the field. And then you can also dive into the technical details, but initially, you need to be able to explain the purpose of it.”
Head of Department at DTU Compute Jan Madsen agrees:
“It’s interesting to see the students present their research in this way. You know it from pitching a startup with a commercial idea. But pitching it academically is a completely different approach. In general, we researchers are not good enough at learning to make those relatively short presentations that get to the core and also have the big picture in mind.”
It is common knowledge within journalism that it is useful for people to bring a suitable artifact that can help the story along. This is something that Mark Henney also learned from the dissemination course at DTU Compute. He was the only one to bring such an artifact, the lamp.
“I always find it fun when people bring something with them. And especially when it comes to light technology, where you are technologically limited by what a screen can do. So, you need to take the real technology, which is something other than a projector screen, out and put it into people’s eyes. Because people’s eyes perceive it differently. And it’s a really good way to present and capture people’s attention,” he says.
PhD Power Hour will return in 2025
PhD Power Hour was established by Chief Consultant Søren Poulsen at Aarhus University and Project Manager Mathilde Sjølander Andresen at DTU Compute. They are happy about the format, she says:
”It is increasingly important for us to raise awareness of our young talents and the groundbreaking technologies they are developing. Digital Tech Summit serves as an essential platform for upcoming researchers, offering them strategic opportunities to showcase their innovative work and potentially connecting them with future investors and industry collaborators. This is why talent initiatives such as Ph.D. Power Hour are great, and we anticipate expanding the format next year."
The Digital Tech Summit in 2025 will take place at Øksnehallen on November 5. – 6.
