Moderating a demo day is one of the best ways you can grow your digital capital, show competency within a certain field, and improve your public speaking skills. In this article I will explain how you can moderate your own demo day, and how you can best leverage the WEquil community to grow yourself, and accelerate your way to equilibrium.
In order to moderate a demo day you need to have presented at least three projects, and at least one in a public demo day. This is to display that you know what demo day is like, and can see what are the steps required to be moderator. So, here are the prerequisite instructions needed in order to become a moderator.
How to Become a Moderator
Instructions for moderating a Demo Day are as follows:
Apply to be a moderator (1 month out) - You do this by filling out this google form with the required fields: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1MTCUvVDc1kpaQfhqwyMPXK0KPiu-5jDVRXjaWQ-fY1M/viewform?edit_requested=true
Blog Post (1 month out) - Publish a blog post of the upcoming Demo Day including what the demo day will be about, information on how students can create projects and apply to be on demo day, and how you are moderating the demo day. Use the category corresponding to your blog and appropriate Level. Here is the link to the Canva template used to create the picture cover for the blog post.
Publication Notification ( 1 month) - Publish your Demo Day blog post link in WEquil.School's Auditorium. Verify that leadership saw this and published your link on WEquil.School Facebook groups.
Call for projects (3 weeks out) - Share your Demo Day blog post again with improvements and ask students at WEquil.School to join. Include a link to the improved virtual classroom. Indicate that you are available to help them come up with project ideas and socialize drafts. Verify that leadership shared your Demo Day blog post on WEquil.School Facebook groups.
Facilitate socialization and collaboration (1-2 weeks out) - Take a leadership role reaching out to students that indicated interest, replying to messages, and socializing drafts relating to your Demo Day.
Moderate Dress Rehearsal (Thursday before Demo Day) - Verify that all projects are eligible for Demo Day (See section 4). Verify that Leadership has provided a Zoom link for the Dress Rehearsal an hour before 6 pm eastern. Run the dress rehearsal in a manner consistent with past Demo Day moderators with one exception...pause after each presentation and allow everyone to provide feedback and suggestions. Indicate to leadership if you believe any project or presenter is not ready for Demo Day.
Create and Publish Agenda* (Friday before Demo Day) - The agenda includes project links, the guest speakers information, how to join demo day, and the agenda cover photo which you can design at this link. Here is an example of a demo day agenda. Publish the agenda by noon on Friday with WEquil.School. Verify that leadership published the agenda on Social media before 2 pm on Friday.
Publication Notification ( Friday before Demo Day) - Publish your Demo Day blog post link in WEquil.School's Auditorium. Verify that leadership saw this and published your link on WEquil.School Facebook groups.
I outline all of these steps in the Moderator Instructions article as well.
How to Moderate the Demo Day
Moderators can be creative in how they want to approach moderating a demo day! Our comedy demo day was very different than some of our other demo days we've done because of the demo day theme. But here are a few things that moderators should try to cover within the demo day and it gives a base structure to work off of:
Introduction - Start by introducing yourself, WEquil School, the demo day topic of the week, and what demo day is. Here is a template you can read off of: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pfxmSPzk_9kM-L87g9EwuTaC-BP4Y_p6XGw13xZxWDU/edit#heading=h.mt370v5xypq2
Introduce guest speaker - Introduce whoever is guest speaker including, who they are, what they do, and how you can see their work. Make sure to make them feel welcomed and want to jump into the conversation.
Guest Speaker opening remarks - Give the guest speaker a chance to talk a little bit about themselves and why they wanted to join demo day to speak with everyone.
Introduce each student - Introduce each student before they present including their name, and the name of their project
Ask Guest Speaker for thoughts - After every presentation ask the Guest Speaker to provide comments and suggestions
Allow for conversation between students - Let anybody jump into the discussion and provide comments and ideas
Repeat 4-6 for each student
Closing remarks - In your closing remarks make sure to include...thanks to everyone who joined, what the next demo day is going to be, and how viewers can see the projects that was presented during the demo day
This is a framework that you can work within, but overall you can approach moderating a demo day however you would like! Know that moderating a demo day is a learning opportunity in which you can practice your public speaking skills, and have a safe space to fail, and then learn from your failures.
Here is another article that I wrote on hoe to have a good demo day that you can check out at this link: https://www.wequil.school/post/how-to-have-a-good-demo-day
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Moderating a demo day is a way to grow your leadership skills, public speaking skills, and organizational skills and we encourage all WEquil School members to try and moderate their own demo day. If you have any questions or need any help reach out to our community leaders. By moderating a demo day you are taking on responsibility, but it doesn't mean you have to do it alone.