Playbook: Focus Presentations

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Purpose: To share specific knowledge within your Focus, ideally through showing a project you've built or research you've done.

Guidelines

If you plan on doing a Focus presentation, please make sure to follow these guidelines:

  • Your presentation should be between 4-6 minutes.
  • You should not present if you are only at the "learn" stage in your Focus.
  • You should not present on a high level topic, like "an overview of AI". Focus presentations need to have a level of depth and be about specific knowledge (not general knowledge).

      • — Examples —

    1. âś… Using transformers to summarize academic papers.
    2. ❌ How convolutional neural networks (CNNs) work.

      3. or

    3. âś…Detecting luteinizing hormone surge to optimize productivity.
    4. ❌Stages of female menstruation.

      5. or

    5. âś…Using prime editing to cure cystic fibrosis.
    6. ❌ Overview of CRISPR-cas9.
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VIRTUAL FOCUS PRESENTATIONS The content for virtual focus presentations is similar to in-person presentations, but there are a few key delivery changes: 1. Bring more ENERGY! You're on computers, so you need to be more energetic/memorable to keep people engaged. 2. Pause + Vocal Fluctuations. In person you have more opportunities to physically move your body, have more elaborate hand gestures, etc. Virtually, to keep your presentation interesting try to pause to make your points dramatic and change your voice volume/speed. Overall, be intentional about having interesting content and engaging delivery.

Examples of Focus Presentations

Cameron Kerr: Liquid Biopsy and Immunotherapy for Cancer Theapies
Cassia Attard: Connectomics and Understanding Our Brain
Adam Omarali: Natural Language Processing and Sentiment Analysis
Hannah Le: Evolving A Soft Robot To Walk On Land Using CPPN-NEAT
Lana Bozanic: Accelerating Drug Discovery with Quantum Computing
Aadil Ali: Using Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) To Identify Fake Content
Ahmed Moselhi: Curing Cancer With Light - Optical Epigenetic Modifications
Riya Karumanchi: Generative Design Using Artificial Intelligence

Best Practices [Must Read]

  • Use analalogies to explain complex topics.
    • E.g. Explaining how CRISPR works with an anology of scissors and glue.
  • You should storyboard your Focus presentation.
  • Engage your audience from the very beginning. It's difficult to get their attention later, so start strong!
  • Explain the significance of your topic early - why is what you're presenting on important? Even if you built a small project, explain how the underlying technology can be used to solve bigger problems.
  • Show your project early in the presentation. If you built something or performed an experiment, don't wait until the end to show it.
    • Do a live demo, record a video demo, or have something interactive that shows what you did. This is easier with tech Focuses. With science Focuses, you can still show diagrams and visuals to enagage the audience.
  • You should have practiced your presentation at least 3 times with someone else and have received feedback before you present.
  • Know what your 2-3 "punch in the face" lines are. These are the lines you say that your audience will remember at the end of your presentation.

Presentation Checklist [Must Read]

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Here's a checklist that can help you with your Focus presentation: