By Stephen Adeleye.
A Nigerian-born medical doctor, former Kogi State Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and multiple international award-winning author, Dr Kennedy O. Obohwemu, has emerged winner of the ”Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition” 2022, organised by the University of Sunderland, United Kingdom.
The three-minute thesis competition is an annual competition held in more than 200 universities worldwide.
It is open to PhD students, and challenges participants to present their research in just 180 seconds, in an engaging form that can be understood by an intelligent audience with no background in the research area.
This exercise develops presentation, research and academic communication skills and supports the development of research students’ capacity to explain their work effectively.
An 80,000-word thesis would take nine hours to present.
The contestants (PhD students) have a time limit of three minutes to present their research in language appropriate to non-specialists, and with only one single presentation slide to support them.
Developed by the University of Queensland, Australia in 2008, the success of the 3MT has led to the establishment of local and national competitions in several countries.
As of 20th December 2019, there were at least 85 participating countries from every continent (apart from Antarctica) and at least 941 institutions.
The competition challenges doctoral candidates to present a compelling spoken presentation on their research topic and its significance in just three minutes.
At 100 words per minute, researchers needed to write 3 x 100-word speeches with absolute precision and present them in the form of a spoken word contest.
Since 2014 Vitae have proudly hosted the UK ®3MT competition which is the culmination of finalists from Vitae member Higher Education Institutions throughout the United Kingdom.
Active PhD and Professional Doctorate (Research) candidates who have successfully passed their confirmation milestone (including candidates whose thesis is under submission) by the date of their first presentation are eligible to participate in 3MT competitions at all levels.
Joining the rich tradition, the University of Sunderland held their 3MT contest on Friday 13th May 2022, which was open to PhD students from all nationalities, across all faculties and campuses of the university (Sunderland, London, and Hong Kong).
Multiple award-winning Nigerian writer, and Spoken Word Artist and leadership Coach, Dr. Kennedy O. Obohwemu, emerged winner of the competition by unanimous decision.
With his presentation titled, ”Childhood Vaccinations: Our Collective Responsibility’’, Dr. Kennedy swept the audience off their feet with his characteristic poise, style, elegance, and class.
Dr. Kennedy’s research focuses on parental childhood vaccine hesitancy, an increasingly important public health concern in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world.
Vaccine hesitancy is associated with a decrease in vaccine coverage and an increase in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks and epidemics. Many studies have focused on understanding and defining the relatively new socio-medical term, vaccine hesitancy; few have attempted to measure the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy in the UK.
Using conceptual frameworks based on the Protection Motivation Theory, Dr. Kenney’s research quantifies the prevalence of vaccine hesitancy in the UK and examines the association of vaccine hesitancy with sociodemographics and childhood vaccination coverage.
The research attempts to aid public health professionals with a catalogue of health interventions and strategies to ultimately address and prevent parental vaccine hesitancy in the long term.
Monitoring vaccine hesitancy could help inform immunisation programs as they develop and target methods to increase vaccine confidence and vaccination coverage.
Warm happy cheers to a worthy doctoral fellow making Africa proud in the diaspora!
About Dr. Kennedy:
Dr. Kennedy Obehiri Obohwemu is a medical graduate from Delta State University, Abraka, Nigeria. He holds a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from the prestigious University of Roehampton, United Kingdom.
He also has a postgraduate certificate on Leadership and Management in Health from the University of Washington, USA. He is currently a PhD student and Academic Tutor at the Faculty of Health Science & Wellbeing, University of Sunderland, United Kingdom.
He bagged a State Merit Award for his outstanding performance during his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Year. He is a Fellow of the Young African Leadership Institute (YALI), Regional Leadership Center (West Africa), a global initiative of former President Barack Obama of the United States.
He was rewarded with the highly coveted Obama’s YALI Leadership Award in recognition of his exceptional leadership skills and managerial prowess.
He was selected among thousands of applicants from around the world to attend the 2017 Summer Youth Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters, New York City, USA. He was also selected among hundreds of young African leaders to attend the 2017 International Conference on Climate Change in Bellevue, Washington. The event was co-hosted by The Alliance for Climate Protection and The Climate Reality Project, a U.S. non-profit, public charity founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
Dr. Kennedy has experience across healthcare, civic leadership, policy formulation and legislative drafting, business and entrepreneurship, community development and youth empowerment.
He is a publisher, editor, novelist, playwright, visionary poet, leadership coach, activist and social blogger.
A writer of colour, Dr. Kennedy enjoys stories of love, adventure, mystery, and suspense. His internationally acclaimed book TWISTED was published in the United States and won the 2015 Readers Favourite Award within one year of its publication.
Dr. Kennedy is the Founder and Emeritus President of the Association of Nigerian Student Authors (ANSA).
He is a born leader, an uncanny talent, a refulgent adjudicator, a trusted administrator, an exotic breed, a man of first-class ideas, objective, creative, exquisite!
