Creating a Unique and Beautiful Presentation using R Programming Language
“A great presentation gives smart ideas an advantage”
I was interning with an AI/ML startup — Rises Analytics Solutions Pvt Ltd, in my hometown when the CEO of the company got invited by a college for a presentation of the topic, AI vs COVID-19, for their students. Since I had just joined the firm for internship I was assigned to make that presentation, which was a great experience in itself and got me to learn a lot.
So first of all let us know what exactly is a presentation.
A presentation is, typically a demonstration, introduction, lecture meant to inform, persuade, inspire or to present a new idea or product it is basically visual storytelling. So while narrating a story you have a certain sequence of events. Not necessarily but a story has a few elements without which it seems incomplete, like a Point of view, Perspective, Morale and many more things. These are all relevant in a presentation too, you need to slowly build up the story and main topic of the presentation.
What have I done ?
What have I done, why am I sharing my experience about a normal presentation. Well this was not a normal presentation, I made the whole presentation in R programming Language using one of it’s javascript libraries — reveal.js, an open source HTML presentation framework. It’s a tool that enables anyone with a web browser to create fully-featured and beautiful presentations. Presentations made with reveal js are built on open web technologies.
To create a reveal.js presentation from R Markdown you specify the revealjs_presentation output format in the front-matter of your document.
You can create a slide show broken up into sections by using the # and ## heading tags (you can also create a new slide without a header using a horizontal rule (----). Here is the starting code :
---
title: "AI against COVID-19"
author: "Name of the Author"
date: 24-04-2020
output:
revealjs::revealjs_presentation:
theme: night
highlight: espresso
center: true
transition: concave
---Who was the target audience here ?
It was a presentation for engineering students interested in AI,ML and NLP . Mainly students with majors in Computer Science and Information Technology.
Why did I choose R and not any other platforms like Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation ?
I am interested in Data Science and for that I am learning the R Language, Since the audience were engineering college students and interested in programming, I was asked to use an open source software for making the presentation as it would make a lasting impression about the company and students would love a different approach to make a presentation.
How did I make the presentation, which was appreciated by many participating students ?
Coming back to the storyline of presentation topic — COVID-19, sequence of my story was
- Greetings and welcoming everybody. Tried to lighten the pressure on students, due to effects of the virus and pandemic, using a cartoon.
2. Information about the virus.
3. Global effects.
4. Effects of virus on India.
5. Few slides of live graphs, of which some were made by me in R using the most popular ggplot library.
6. How is AL being used to battle COVID-19.
7. Use Cases of ML, NLP in fighting COVID-19.
8. Top Global tech companies deploying AI.
9.Top Indian tech companies working against COVID-19 using AI
10. What is the Presenter’s company doing (Introduction of the company).
11. Company’s contribution in tackling the Pandemic Situation and the virus.
12. How can students contribute in this pandemic situation.
It is alright to tell what tech giants are doing and what is the situation all over the world, but students will have a doubt, how can they contribute. So I provided certain competition information.
13. Information about the presenter.
14. Ending the presentation on a note asking them to stay safe and healthy amid COVID-19 situation.
When you see the basic plot of the presentation, the presentation starts with broader and general information about the topic as it is important that whoever is attending the presentation must have an basic idea about the topic. This is presented in two segments — Global effects and Local effects. Then we slowly move on to the agenda of the presentation, followed by examples again Global and then Local. Further there is information about the company and then their contribution. Ending with “What can be your role”.
What issues I faced while making this presentation
R is certainly not a simple programming language to use, also it was my first time making a presentation in R, I did face certain issues, which were as follows :
- Centre = TRUE is default in reveal js, this was one of the major issues I faced while making the presentation. Initially I was not able to make columns in a slide for presenting the content, like presenting the pictures and written information together.
- Secondly there was a problem, lag during playing the presentation, whenever a specific slide was played for a longer time, there was a lag of 30–40 seconds. I could not set an automatic time limit for playing the slides as it depends on the presenter, how much time he or she will speak about that slide.
“The success of your presentation will be judged not by the knowledge you send but by what the listener receives.”
