How to Give Strong Technical Presentations

8th November 2019

Prof. Dr. Oscar Nierstrasz, Manuel Leuenberger, UNIBE

Prof. Dr. Jacques Savoy, UNINE

Prof. Markus Püschel, ETH Zürich

Markus Püschel is a Professor of Computer Science at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where he was the head of the department from 2013 to 2016. Before joining ETH in 2010, he was a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where he still has an adjunct status. He received his Diploma (M.Sc.) in Mathematics and his Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Computer Science, in 1995 and 1998, respectively, both from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. He was an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, the IEEE Signal Processing Letters, was a Guest Editor of the Proceedings of the IEEE and the Journal of Symbolic Computation, and served on various program committees of conferences in computing, compilers, and programming languages. He received the main teaching awards from student organizations of both institutions CMU and ETH and a number of awards for his research. He also holds the title of Privatdozent at the University of Technology, Vienna, Austria. In 2009 he cofounded Spiralgen Inc.

Presentations can be a great way to concisely communicate technical work to an audience and are an important tool in decision making. Unfortunately, many presentations fall far short of this goal and create an audience of email-checking laptop users. The good news is that, just like any technical discipline, one can actually learn how to create effective and attractive presentations based on principles and rules that are presented in this course.

This course covers all aspects of delivering strong technical presentations from explaining technical content to designing the slides to the actual delivery. In each case I explain what works, what does not, and why, i.e., the basic principles behind good practices. Due to time limitations, this course is not a workshop in which participants present and obtain feedback. However, I illustrate everything by example and present the material in a way that makes it immediately applicable. The goal is to provide the knowledge that enables the participants, whether beginner or experienced presenter, to further improve their presentation skills and hence their impact whenever they step in front of an audience.

09:30-11:00

Break

11:15-12:45

Lunch

14:00-15:30

Break

15:30-16:30

Bern, Schützenmattstrasse 14, room 107

Map

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