The Falling Walls Conference is an annual science event in Berlin, Germany, that coincides with the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall (9 November 1989). The scientific conference (which used to be a one-day event, but which now extends on several days) showcases the research work of international scientists from a wide range of fields. The Falling Walls Foundation After the inaugural 2009 conference organized by the Einstein Foundation Berlin, an independent non-profit institution by the name of the Falling Walls Foundation was established through the support of the German Ministry of Education and Research and the Berlin Senator for Education, Science and Research. The foundation is managed by Tatjana König. She is supported by Prof. , a Berlin entrepreneur and publisher of the Tagesspiegel, who serves at the board of trustees of the foundation. Jürgen Mlynek is the current chair of the board of trustees. Conference format Every speaker presents a talk of maximum 15 minutes, explaining how their scientific research helps to break down walls in science and society. Notable speakers 2017 Alexander Betts, University of Oxford Sarah Chayes, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Esther Duflo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Dennis Lo, Chinese University of Hong Kong W.E. Moerner, Stanford University Jian-Wei Pan, University of Science and Technology of China Edgar Pieterse, University of Cape Town Jürgen Schmidhuber, Swiss AI Lab Christina Smolke, Stanford University 2016 Quarraisha Abdool Karim, CAPRISA, Durban Kevin Bales, University of Nottingham Neil Gershenfeld, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Rob Knight, University of California, San Diego Lim Chuan Poh, A*STAR, Singapore Randolph Nesse, Arizona State University Peter Neumann, King's College London Hélène Rey, London Business School Katherine Richardson, University of Copenhagen Eyal Weizman, Goldsmiths, University of London 2015 June Andrews, University of Stirling, UK Bruce A. Beutler, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, USA Emmanuelle Charpentier, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Germany Ottmar Edenhofer, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany Nilüfer Göle, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind, London, UK Dirk Helbing, ETH Zurich, Switzerland Naila Kabeer, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK Wolfgang Ketterle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Nina Kraus, Northwestern University, USA Joanne Liu, Médecins Sans Frontières, Switzerland Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, New York City Brian Schmidt, Australian National University Jackie Yi-Ru Ying, Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Singapore Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President, European Research Council (Session Host) Rush D.