The engineer who designed the Shard joins us to reveal the seven simple inventions that enable us to see the invisible, build mighty skyscrapers, and even escape the planet.

‘[Roma Agrawal] has a special skill of reawakening that part of us that simply wants to understand how the built world works’ – Angela Saini

Smartphones, skyscrapers, spacecraft. Modern technology seems mind-bogglingly complex. But beneath the surface, it can be beautifully simple.

In this talk, award-winning engineer and broadcaster Roma Agrawal will deconstruct our most complex feats of engineering into seven fundamental inventions: the nail, spring, wheel, lens, magnet, string and pump. Each of these objects is itself a wonder of design, the result of many iterations and refinements.

Tracing the surprising journeys of each invention through the millennia, Roma will reveal how handmade Roman nails led to modern skyscrapers, how the potter’s wheel enabled space exploration, and how humble lenses helped her conceive a child against the odds.

She will invite us to marvel at these small but perfectly formed inventions, sharing the stories of the remarkable, and often unknown, scientists and engineers who made them possible. The nuts and bolts that make up our world may be tiny, and are often hidden, but they’ve changed our lives in dramatic ways.