Okay, you’ve moved from idea, to Design Document, to implementation and field-testing. Now, you are ready to pitch your ARG — and your vision of the future — to an audience.

Don’t imagine that you are just talking to a classroom of fellow students. Instead, imagine that you and your group are pitching your project to a group of investors, who need to be convinced by the originality of your vision, the depth of your research, the quality of your delivery, and the competence of your teamwork… before they show you the money. In your post-uni lives, you will likely find yourself pitching ideas — and by extension, yourselves — in many different contexts. This is an opportunity to practice and to demonstrate what your group has achieved over the past few months.

Basic rules:

• Pitches should be 15 minutes minimum, 18 minutes maximum (ie, TED Talk sized). You will get cut off if you go over, so time yourselves and don’t improvise.
• Then there will be 15 minutes Q&A with me and the rest of class, in which we will ask critical questions to probe your thinking about the project’s design and the overall theme.
• Pitches should outline the revised details from your Design Document, but should tell the story of your project — and the story that your project tells to users. How does your project reflect an intelligent speculation about where technology is leading our society & vice versa?
• Every group member needs to take part. Half your grade (5%) will be for your individual effort (including Q&A participation), the other half will be for the group’s presentation as a whole (how it all fits together) and everyone in the group will get the same grade (5%).
• You should make use of audio-visual tools to wow us over… but deploy them effectively and practise so they run smoothly.

Here are some basic tips on delivering an effective presentation.