The origin of this conference stems from a gap we perceived in the dissertation process. To analogize it to a famous thought experiment – if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If months of hard work resulted in a document that just went from student to marker and was ultimately archived – did it make an impact? We thought perhaps not.

The idea of this day is thus manifold: to give prior year MSc students a platform to showcase their research, to allow current year MSc students to be exposed to the types of research they could undertake in their own dissertations, and perhaps most importantly, to facilitate knowledge exchange and provide an opportunity for collective feedback and discussion – something that is integral to the progression of science itself. After all, the Latin root of the word dissertation is dissertare – which means continue to discuss. We hope everyone leaves with the spirit of continuous discussion today.

Going forward, the aim of the DisCo Initiative is to provide exposure to the dissertations, and create a network of current students, alumni students, professors and on the long run companies to share the knowledge and facilitate a discussion.