Question: What truly inspired you to want to make a dance video with the money (that is if you win)?

Alison Whitaker answered on 24 Jun 2015:

Well, a few things really. A few years ago I was involved in a project called dancing statistics, aimed at undergraduate students, which explained some basic statistics concepts through dance. It went really really well and has over 140,000 hits (there were 4 videos altogether).

When I was thinking about what I would do if I won I’m a Scientist, I thought about doing something in schools but actually, I thought having something that would last longer than a few hours for not many people, I could do something that everyone involved in I’m a Scientist could benefit from (if they wanted) and lots more people besides.

I want to create something that is quite movement based and is inspired by a some of the concepts I work with. What’s important to me, is that you can see how the movement translates the concept in a new way – it won’t be totally abstract – so people can get a better understanding of the concept, but also learn about it in a new way. We might do one with text explanation and one without so it can help people in schools to understand what they are seeing.

Lots of people think statistics and computer science are only for people who can be bothered learning maths from a textbook, but that isn’t what I think! I want to share some of my enthusiasm that understanding some of the concepts I work with can be understood and appreciated by everyone.