For this year’s IT Innovation Challenges, 12 student projects submitted project proposals based on ideas that were shortlisted in the Student 2017 round. Before the decision about funding allocation is made, the projects also have to ‘pitch’ their proposals to the Panel. In preparation for this, we held a ‘pitch practice’ event where the projects were invited to present their pitch to the other student projects. The practice event was in the same room and followed the same format as that used for the actual pitch event. Each project had 5 minutes to talk about their project, using no more than three slides, addressing three main points:
- What is the idea
- What are the benefits
- What could be done for a reduced budget
The Panel (or in this case, the other student projects) then asked follow-up questions and provided feedback. After the pitches, participants had a chance to chat over tea and cake and talk to each other and the IT Innovation facilitators.
We have not run these pitch practice events for previous rounds, but based on the feedback from this one we will definitely want to do it again.
“This was really useful. I feel a lot more confident doing this in front of the Panel now”
“I learned a lot from seeing the other presentations”
“Having been in the room and done the presentation once means I now feel better prepared to meet the Panel next week”
“If we are successful in getting funding, will there be more opportunities like this to meet the other projects and compare ideas and experiences?”