The presentation success movement

Humankind has been using different practices of communication to convince and persuade others for a host of objectives from time immemorial. The latest of the bunch is presentation, a must-have tool for managers and salespeople alike to win over their needs, be it an allocation from the company's budget for a new project or a multi-million dollar contract. Professionals across disciplines and functional areas are expected to give presentations in today's world of cut-throat competition.

However, the inability to give impactful presentation has turned out to be serious problem all over the world. Bangladesh is no exception from  'presentation-poverty' issue. "People say there are no jobs and companies say they cannot find the right people. In our career, we often find ourselves at the corporate end of the interview table, and I can say the gap to this economic issue is indeed confidence and conviction, the skill to communicate and promote yourself, to be able to present," says Zeeshan Kingshuk Huq, co-founding director and CEO, Zero Gravity Ventures Limited.

Recognising this problem, a ‘Presentation Success Movement’ began in 2012.  After two years of iteration regarding format and scale, the competition, fondly called ‘Presentation WhizKids (PWK)’ is now more improved and challenging.  Muhammad Saimum Hossain, founder of PWK, re-launched the competition this time under a national platform called the PWK Foundation. The  ‘PWK 2015’ was powered by the social and digital marketing company GEEKY Social Ltd, and sponsored by the EMK Centre and NewsCred.

"We plan on grooming and forming no less than 20,000 world-class presenters by the year 2020," said Muhammad Saimum Hossain with determination.

PWK Nationals 2015 had four segments, beginning with the online registration and slide submission rounds, followed by a bootcamp session held at the Faculty of Business Studies, University of Dhaka to better prepare the participants.

Out of about 100 participating teams, the top 24 made it to the quarterfinals on November 14 at the EMK Centre based on the slides submitted. After a spectacular show of talent and neck-to-neck competition, 12 teams managed to squeeze their way through to the semi-finals on November 20, 2015. After another groundbreaking performance, the final 6 were chosen to proceed to the grand finale, the instant presentation round.

The three esteemed judges determined the fates of the top six. Mohammad Masum Khan, country business manager of Nestle Professionals, Md. Saifuddin, managing director of IDLC Securities Limited, and Zeeshan Kingshuk Huq, co-founding director and CEO, Zero Gravity Ventures Limited were at unease in their difficulty to separate the finalists.

With the final topic being to "sell a gym membership to a nerd," TEAM DITCHING X snatched the championshipss title, with members Nakibur Rahman, Waheed Rashed Chaudhuri and Faria Mowla. TEAM  POTTER fell into second place by a slight gap. Similarly close, TEAM EGG            HEADS took third.

A grand gala and award-giving ceremony was held with Professor Shibli Rubayat Ul Islam, Dean, Faculty of Business Studies (FBS), Dhaka University as the chief guest. In his speech, he mentioned, "Thankfully, PWK Foundation took the right initiative at the right time. The globalised world requires our younger generation to be able to present themselves and represent our country. It is a crucial skill, and I hope this movement is just the beginning."

The writer is a key member of the PWK Steering Committee and currently a final year student at North South University, [email protected]