Resources

Speaker one-slide guidance

You get one 16:9 image for seven minutes. If the slide is a paragraph, the audience will read instead of listen. If it is a logo, they will look at you and find nothing to hold. The job of the slide is to be the object the room can point at later — a chip layout, a bacterium at work, a before-and-after number rendered as a picture, a map. One focal point. High contrast. Type large enough to read from the back of a 400-seat hall (if you need more than about eight words, you need fewer words). No animation: motion is a DQ, and it is also a crutch. Test the file on a cheap projector and on a phone. Technical spec lives on Compete.

A useful test: mute yourself, show the slide for three seconds, and ask a colleague what the talk is about. If they say “science” or “a startup,” the slide has failed. If they say a concrete noun — “photonic chip,” “malaria test,” “CubeSat” — you have an anchor.

Example structure: hook, problem, mechanism, evidence, ask

This is a map, not a prison. Times are for the live seven minutes. The 90-second video should be a compressed pass through the same five moves, not a different genre.

1. Hook (about 45 seconds). A concrete moment. Last Tuesday, a clinic, a failed pour, a phone that thermal-throttled in a bus. Not “imagine a world.”
2. Problem (about 75 seconds). Who is hurt, how badly, why existing fixes fail. The audience must care before you explain a method.
3. Mechanism (about 150 seconds). How the thing actually works. One analogy. The slide earns its keep here. This is the four-minute gift versus a three-minute thesis format — use it, do not pad it. Comparison: The Field.
4. Evidence (about 75 seconds). One result, one number, one limitation you name yourself. Specificity beats authority. You may not demo; you may describe.
5. Ask (about 75 seconds). If this works, what changes, and what do you want? A lab collaboration, a manufacturing partner, a replication, a policy door — one ask, spoken as a sentence the room can quote. Then stop. Going 7:01 is a DQ.

Seven-minute allocation (training)

This table is a rehearsal suggestion. It is not an extra official split of the seven minutes.

Teaching demo (invented talk, not a 7MT entry)

Training only. This is not a 7MT winner and not an extra official split of the seven minutes. Invented topic: a clinic-temperature assay that reads one drop in twelve minutes. Unique job of this site: 限时科技口述.

Deletion drill: record 9:00, mark résumé / second analogy / lab tour, cut to 6:40. If the mechanism vanished, you cut the wrong sentences. Pair with the 90-second cut.

Static slide and spoken argument

The slide is an object the room can point at later. The oral line carries the argument. Do not use someone else’s talk as a 7MT sample.

Worked slide object (invented)

Do not treat this as a 7MT entry. If the slide shows a paper strip with one drop, the first minute names the strip so a stranger can retell it (Comprehension). If a number appears, the spoken line names n, the clinic-temperature condition, and the two false negatives in the same breath (Content). If the slide is almost empty, the oral line holds the room; if you need the slide as a script, rewrite the talk (Engagement / Communication).

After a heat or semifinal (self-review)

This is a speaker worksheet. It is not a judge comment and not evidence that a listed date occurred as a public result.

1. Which sentence did a non-specialist actually repeat? Write it down.
2. Where did the mechanism thin out? Mark the timestamp from your recording.
3. Separate evidence you showed from claims you implied.
4. One change for the next stage — cut, clarify, or rename the slide object.

A published venue or date is not proof that a heat produced a public result. Berlin 12 October and Shanghai 14 November remain EventScheduled on this site.

90-second cut from a seven-minute talk

7MT’s unique job is a timed science oral: seven minutes on stage, ninety seconds on the application tape. The tape is not a trailer. It is the same argument with the mechanism compressed. Training example (invented topic, not a 7MT entry):

• Keep: “The assay reads a drop in twelve minutes at clinic temperature.” Concrete noun + condition.
• Cut: lab founding story, second analogy, résumé of the supervisor, a tour of the bench.
• One number: name the n, the comparator, and the failure mode in the same sentence.
• Stop at 0:88. The last two seconds are silence, not a new claim. 91 seconds is a no.

This drill is a rehearsal suggestion. It does not add an official split beyond the published 90-second cap on Apply.

Rehearsal plan

Five passes, on different days. Do not cram them into one evening.

1. Pass 1 — outline out loud, no slide, no timer. If you cannot tell it walking, you cannot tell it on stage.
2. Pass 2 — timer on, still no slide. Find the sentence that always overruns. Cut it. Most talks die in the mechanism because the speaker loves the second analogy.
3. Pass 3 — slide locked, record video. Watch it without sound, then without picture. Fix the one that failed harder.
4. Pass 4 — hostile room. Three colleagues sit as the panel roles: specialist, operator, communicator. They score the sheet. You do not argue.
5. Pass 5 — dress. Same shoes, same mic distance, full seven minutes, once. Then stop rehearsing the jokes. Record the 90-second application from this version, not from an older script.

Reading from notes is allowed and scored down. Memorise the first 45 seconds and the last sentence; let the middle be spoken, not recited. If AI helped you outline, disclose it in the application as required on Apply and FAQ.