The task was like this: you’re randomly provided a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and you have to give reasons as to why it is the most important of all, and thus requires financial investments from the audience. I prepared for this by searching the United Nations website along with other resources like the sdg.iisd.org and the Stockholm Investment Institution to give statistics about reasons for supporting my goal.
Here is the video.
Verbal Presentation: I was not making too much eye contact with the audience, looked at the paper too often, and needed to stop saying ‘um’ too much. Also, I had some inaccurate pronunciations but was still loud and clear. My posture needed to be less hunched and I needed to be more confident, and I didn’t smile too much. I needed to rehearse more than I did, and hear myself when doing so.
Structure: my introduction was hesitant but made some sense, my body was a little more confident, but some explanations of examples were still incoherent in terms of language, and my conclusion felt powerful, but I still hesitated when giving the mattress company as an example.
Content: my sources and facts/statistics were reliable as well as my quotes from experts. I gave no personal perspective as I had no idea I had to include one, as investors may not care about my feelings, and I only considered the fact that they would care about the ‘bigger picture’ and invest based on what they get in return. All information is connected to the topic, even the quote from the expert. Similar to the fact that I didn’t give a personal perspective, I also didn’t connect my SDGs to others because that would just make the investor ask ‘If I wanted to invest in your SDG, why are you telling me about other SDGs I want to invest in?’, so I believe it would be more effective to give the investor only your product to invest in rather than mentioning how your product’s proceeds help 5 other products – the investor might say they think one of the other 5 products sounds more interesting than yours.
The presentation was overall hesitant but most of the information came across. Successes included the fact that I presented all the facts I could find, and also elaborated on them. Challenges included misunderstandings like how I was not only supposed to promote my SDG, but also link it to other SDGs.