Lightning Talks

Lightning Talks #

Lightning Talks are a meeting series within the tech talk slots in which people give short 10 minute talks. The main goals are to:

  1. Regularly share what we’re working on.
  2. Find overlaps between projects or problems someone else in the team could help with.
  3. Generate ideas for future tech talks.
  4. Do all this without a big time commitment, both for presenters and attendees.

The talks can be on any topic, including but not limited to:

  • A project (including one that hasn’t started yet).
  • A tool or technique you use.
  • Something you’d like help with.

Informal talks or discussions without slides or much preparation are encouraged and very welcome!

Talk Format #

Each slot will be 10 minutes with a few minutes after for questions. We will be fairly strict with time to make sure everyone on the agenda gets to present.

You can choose whatever format you like (slides, markdown, notebook, freestyle…), but remember that it’s a short slot which lends itself to concise, high-level overviews of a topic. For example, if your talk is on a project you may wish to cover the following:

  1. Background: The domain area, context, problem etc..
  2. Goals: What are the aims of the project?
  3. Status: What’s been done so far, example results (if any).
  4. Tools & Techniques: What you’re using, what you’ve learnt, what you’d like help with.
  5. Summary: who’s working on the project, dates, GitHub link etc..

If you’d like to prepare slides, there’s a PowerPoint template and examples from previous talks under here that can help you get started.

Sign Up #

To sign up to present a Lightning Talk, please add yourself to the signup list

Previous Talks #

You can find a list of previous talks and their slides here.