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# giving talks

you can give talks and present your work publicly as a teenager. nobody will stop you — and in most builder [[communities]], they'll actively encourage it. public speaking is one of those skills that compounds: every talk makes the next one easier, and every talk puts you in front of people who might become [[mentorship-networking|mentors]], collaborators, or friends.

## start small: the 5-minute-of-fame format

the easiest way to start is Socratica's 5-minute-of-fame (5mof) format: five minutes, any topic, friendly audience. the stakes are low and the feedback is immediate.

I gave a 5mof at Socratica on vibe coding — framed as a guessing game ("what can/can't Claude Code do?"). five minutes is short enough that you can't spiral into anxiety about it, but long enough to say something real. the audience is other builders who are there to support each other, not to judge.

if your school or community doesn't have a Socratica chapter, start one. see [[communities]] for how.

## conference talks

once you've done a few informal talks, conferences are the next step.

### talks I've given

- **ILC (Innovative Learning Conference):** presented a talk about innovation culture at my school with a friend. this was a prepared talk at a real education conference — slides, audience of educators and students.
- **university dorm lectures:** presented on consciousness, drawing on my EEG/neurotech background from my neurotech internship and [[publishing-research|research]]. the audience was university students, which was intimidating but taught me to present to a technical crowd.
- **Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop (AMW):** invited to speak by an organizer (May 2026). this is an invitation-only workshop — the talk came through [[mentorship-networking|network connections]], not a cold application.

### how to get conference speaking slots

1. **start at your school.** class presentations, club demos, school assemblies. every opportunity to present counts as practice.
2. **present at community events.** Socratica 5mof, [[competitions-hackathons|hackathon]] demo days, meetup lightning talks. these are the farm league.
3. **apply to conferences with student/lightning talk tracks.** many conferences explicitly welcome student speakers:
   - **JSHS (Junior Science and Humanities Symposium)** — present original STEM research, regionals to nationals
   - **NeurIPS** has had a High School Projects Track with 330+ submissions
   - **education conferences** like Deeper Learning often feature student speakers
   - **local tech meetups** usually have open lightning talk slots — just ask the organizer
4. **get invited through your network.** my AMW talk came through a connection, not an application. when people know your work, invitations follow. this is why [[shipping-products|shipping products]] and [[publishing-research|publishing research]] matter — they make you someone worth inviting.

## hackathon demos as speaking practice

every [[competitions-hackathons|hackathon]] ends with a demo. this is public speaking in disguise — you're pitching your project to judges and an audience in 2-5 minutes. the pressure of a timed demo with stakes teaches you:

- how to explain technical work to non-technical people
- how to structure a narrative (problem → solution → demo → impact)
- how to handle Q&A
- how to recover when your demo breaks live (and it will)

if you're doing hackathons anyway, you're already practicing public speaking.

## the pitch skill

giving talks and pitching are the same muscle. the skills transfer directly to:

- **[[funding-grants|grant applications]]** — many grants have a pitch component
- **[[mentorship-networking|networking]]** — a 30-second explanation of what you're building IS a pitch
- **[[competitions-hackathons|competition presentations]]** — USAYPT, science fairs, hackathon demos
- **eventually, fundraising** — if you start a company, every investor meeting is a talk

## practical tips

- **practice out loud.** reading your slides silently is not practice. say the words, time yourself, record yourself.
- **one idea per slide.** wall-of-text slides are a crutch. if you need to read your slides, you don't know your material.
- **demos > slides.** a working demo is more compelling than any slide deck. show the thing.
- **energy matters more than polish.** audiences forgive rough slides from someone who clearly cares about their topic. they don't forgive polished slides delivered in a monotone.
- **ask for feedback.** after every talk, ask someone you trust: "what was unclear? what was boring? what should I cut?"
- **record everything.** even phone recordings. watching yourself present is painful but educational.

## the confidence flywheel

here's what happens: you give a talk → someone in the audience is interested → they introduce you to someone → that person invites you to speak somewhere else → bigger audience → more connections → more invitations.

talks build your reputation in [[communities]] faster than almost anything else. when you stand up and present, you become "the person who built X" in people's minds. that identity compounds.

the [[mun-debate|debate and MUN]] skills transfer directly here — if you've done Model UN or Ethics Bowl, you already know how to argue, present, and think on your feet. the transition to tech talks is mostly about switching from persuasion to explanation.