Participating in the 3MT competition was an amazing experience for me. It challenged me to explain my entire PhD research in just three minutes, and that too in the simplest words! I practiced a LOT, and my judge was my seven-year-old son. I practiced so much that my son memorized my whole speech afterward! I was not a confident public speaker, and English is not my first language. Delivering my speech to a general audience in an engaging way, with enough pauses and proper intonation, was the biggest challenge for me. I gained so much confidence throughout the competition process. I am so glad that I won some awards along the way, but I value the experience and the learning process more than anything else. It also felt really great to explain my research to such a big audience. Moreover, the fact that the whole school knows me now because of my 3MT performance feels exhilarating.

Participating in 3MT was a fantastic way to step out of my comfort zone and refine how I share my research with others. I loved connecting with students from diverse disciplines and seeing how they synthesized complex ideas into compelling stories. The experience reinforced what I believe about research communication: it’s less about simply sharing data and more about creating genuine connections. To truly bridge the gap between academia and industry, making your research accessible, engaging, and genuinely useful to people outside the university is essential. My advice to future participants? Practice relentlessly in front of different audiences, but most importantly, find a narrative that feels authentic to you. Don’t shape your story to fit what you think others want to hear—when you own it, the rest falls into place.