prof. dr hab. Maria E. Orlowska Secretary of State, Ministry of Science and Higher Education. And really nice person.

We did our judging today. I had what can only be described as a “Rob moment” right at the start. We were standing in the lobby of the Warsaw Opera house and someone said “Right, let’s head up to the backstage dinner”. “Hang on” I replied, with my usual attention to detail". “We’re missing the Polish Secretary of State.”

Who was of course standing right in front of me.

Oh well. Fortunately the lady in question dismissed this massive gaffe with a wave of a hand and a smile. One way to break the ice I suppose.

We had dinner on the actual stage of the Opera House, behind the backdrop, with the final going on all around us. Then, at around 6:30 we were ushered to our seats at the front of the hall and the judging began.

And it was great.

Jon Perera opening the judging.

All the teams brought their best game. They were fantastic. The judges came in at the end of each presentation with excellent questions and Roger kept the affair rolling along with style and panache. I’ve never known three hours go by so fast.

After that we retired to the judges room for our deliberations. At this point I’d like to thank the teams for making our lives so difficult. The standard was so uniformly high that we had to work really hard to determine the winners.