This year Imperial Festival will be broadcast live around the world for the first time.

Imperial Festival is a free celebration of science and research at the College, with exhibits, hands-on demonstrations and workshops running alongside a vibrant talks programme and a series of music and dance performances.  

The Festival attracts thousands of visitors to the College’s South Kensington Campus over the weekend, and now for the first time people from around the world will be able to follow the action through Imperial’s live-streaming platforms.

Talks on topics ranging from hallucinogenic drugs to the Chinese economy will be streamed live via the College’s YouTube account, while Imperial’s roving reporters will be out and about at the Festival meeting researchers and capturing the atmosphere, and broadcasting live from the College’s Facebook channel.

Jesse Alter, Digital Content and Social Media Manager at Imperial, said: “Recognising the success of our live-lecture streaming throughout the year we want to ensure that we can help bring the excitement of the Festival to as many people as possible, whether they’re able to attend in person or join the conversation online.”

Live lectures

(Times stated in BST)

Saturday

12:00 – Professor Elio Riboli (School of Public Health) – Cancer: is it all really bad luck?

13:00 – Professor Holger Krapp (Bioengineering) and Dr Mirko Kovac (Aeronautics) – Flying animals and robots

14:00 – Dr Andrei Kirilenko (Business School) – Moore’s Law meets Murphy’s Law in financial markets

15:00 – Professor Paul Freemont (Medicine) – Building the bioeconomy

16:00 – Dr Dave Clements, Dr Roberto Trotta (both Physics), Professor Mary Ryan (Materials) and Professor Julie McCann (Computing)  – To infinity and beyond

17:00 – Dr Robin Carhart-Harris (Medicine) – Psychedelic science

Sunday

13:00 – Dr Lidia Lonergan (Earth Science and Engineering) – Italy’s dramatic scenery: rocks, earthquakes and volcanoes

15:00 – Dr Hari Arora, Sqn Ldr Claire Webster and Sqn Ldr Phill Pearce (Bioengineer) – Blast injuries: a clinical problem, an engineering solution

16:00 – Professor George Yip (Business School) – China’s next strategic advantage

Facebook Live

In addition to the nine lectures over the course of the weekend, Saturday will see four live streams on the College’s Facebook channel on Saturday afternoon.

11:55 – Grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony

13:00 – Modelling outbreaks and infections as epidemics spread through a population

14:00 – Find out how quickly a broken ecosystem can be rebuilt, if at all

15:00 – A journey through the Sensorium, a student-led collaboration coordinated by the Imperial College Advanced Hackspace

16:00 – Watch the Horseless Carriage parade with veteran vehicles taking a tour of Prince's Gardens

Sharing the wonder

Last year the Festival generated nearly 2,500 Tweets on the hashtag #impfest and over 400 posts on Instagram.

As part of the festivities, one winner will be selected each day for the best photo or video shared on social media via the hashtag #impfest (at 16:30 on Saturday and at 16:00 on Sunday).

Additionally, the Alumni Weekend at the Imperial Festival will be showcasing Tweets using the hashtag #ourimperial in the Alumni Zone.

Visitors to the Festival will be able to log on to the College’s WiFi via The Cloud network in order to access the online programme and share their experiences on social media.