FAMELAB - The final competition will be held on Monday, May 4 at Hamada in Tel Aviv

The competition will be attended by nine young scientists from all over the country who will be required to present a scientific topic to the general public in three minutes without any aids

The first stages of the FameLab competition for scientific communication took place in the last few days at the Technion in Haifa, at Hamada - the Center for Science Education in Tel Aviv and at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem. The FeyLab competition is being held for the third year at the initiative of the British Council in Israel and under its auspices as part of the Beautiful Science project.

The competition is looking for the new face of scientific communication and is designed to encourage young scientists to integrate communication with the general public in their scientific-technological career. The competition was founded five years ago as part of the Cheltenham Science Festival in Great Britain and was adopted as an international project by the British Council three years ago. The competition is held in nine European countries, and starting in 2010 it will be held in other regions of the world.

Many of the competition participants in previous years in Israel and other countries do participate and initiate activities for the general public. In Israel there is a group "Science on the tip of the fork" based on the graduates of the previous competitions. The group's activities are centered byRoey Tsezana who won a prize in the first competition held in Israel in 2007 and he also organized the competition at the Technion. Michal Dekal, who won the first competition in Israel in 2007, participated in the judging team at Hamada this year and is in regular contact with PaymLab winners from other countries. At the end of the second stage, Adi Yaniv, who won the competition last year, addressed the contestants and invited them to join the activities throughout the country.

Contestants in the competition are required to present a scientific topic within three minutes in an exciting, precise and clear manner without aids or presentations. In the first stage, the competition was held in front of teams of judges in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and in the second stage also in front of an audience. Over fifty scientists registered for the competition and 28 of them reached the semi-final stage. This year's competition was characterized by a very high level and the judges had great difficulty choosing the nine contestants who advanced to the finals - three contestants from each site.

The finalists were invited by Sonia Feldman, who is responsible for science and education at the British Council, to participate in a science communication workshop that will be held at the end of April with a moderator from the UK, Dr. Christopher Riley, a writer, broadcaster and film producer on science topics and with the Israeli actress Esti Zakheim.

The entrants were selected for the finals of the Faymlab 2009 competition

The grand final will be held in front of an audience at Hamada - the center for scientific education in Tel Aviv, on Monday, May 4 at 19:00 p.m. Please register in advance HERE to secure your place.

The finalists, from six academic institutions in Israel, are:

• From the competition at the Technion: Ravid Barak, who has a degree in physics and is a nanotechnology student at the Technion; Marina Rosenfeld, PhD student in medicine and molecular biology at the Technion; Nega Zvi, computer science and mathematics student at the Technion;
• From the competition at Hamada: Shani Wiedergorn, PhD student in neuropsychology at the University of Haifa; Ohad Barzilai, PhD student in software engineering at Tel Aviv University; Goren Gordon, PhD student in physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot;
• From the competition at the Science Museum in Jerusalem: Elroy David, PhD student in microbiology and immunology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev; Panina First, an informatics chemistry student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Guy Kriaf, student of biomedicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The winner of the Israeli final competition will win, among other things, a trip to the science festival in Cheltenham, UK, in June 2009, where you will meet the competition winners from all over Europe.

Among the judges, the actress Esti Zakheim, who participated in leading a two-day workshop in scientific communication and standing in front of an audience for the contestants in the finals. Additional judges: Adi Matan, science attaché at the British Embassy in Israel; Dr. Eitan Friedman, director of the oncogenic unit at Tel Hashomer and host of health corners on the television's morning programs; Prof. Elam Gross from the physics department of the Weizmann Institute.