Hello hackers! Brace yourself because this is a long read. I’ve been using AI since day 1 and over time have discovered how I can use it better. This guide will up your PPT-making skills by 100x.

This is primarily for the Smart India Hackathon but these principles could be applied to any hackathon or even your college PPTs.

Let’s start.

Selecting a problem statement

Do you remember the Bummer Shark Tank episode? (Watch it here). Ashneer asks - “Tere ko offer chahiye ya tere ko kisi logo se offer chahiye?”. A similar thing happens here.

For example, SIH has 254 problem statements. Your goal should be solving a problem rather than a specific one.

Things to take care of while choosing a problem statement -

1. Shortlist boring problem statements, that the masses wouldn’t touch.
2. Avoid problem statements on trendy topics - women's safety, farmers, sustainability, etc.
3. Do not submit early, wait till the last day.

“SIH PPT ka khel hai”, someone had told me. He was right.

Ideally, if they are asking for PPTs, focus on making good PPTs, you don’t need a working prototype (what will you do in the hackathon then?)

Nobody has the time to watch your videos. There are 57378 ideas submitted, say everybody submits a 3-minute video, That's 2,869 hours ~ 120 days worth of content to review.

Submit multiple problem statements, our team submitted 2 problem statements and only one got selected. PPTs for all were made in less than a day.

Generating flowcharts

Displaying the working of the product is important. Everything else can be conveyed verbally to the jury except this. This is a visual thing.

Create 2-3 Claude.ai accounts.

Prompt: {explain your product here}. I have to explain the working of this in a PPT. I want to include a flowchart of how this works. Generate a mermaid flowchart for me.

Refining the flowchart

The first flowchart by Claude will always be complex or something you cannot fit in a PPT slide. You have to fine-tune it.

Prompt 1: This has to fit in a PPT slide. Generate a simple flowchart that explains the working.

Prompt 2: This is too simple, generate a little more complex.

Flowchart after this would be the one you can copy blindly. This is the average of the hard and easy flowchart.

Using Mermaid for the flowchart

Claude will generate the mermaid code. Copy it and paste it on mermaid.live. If you don’t understand syntax, use ChatGPT to make changes (changing orientation, colour, etc)

Annotating the Flowchart

Prompt: Since this is a tech stack slide, tell me if I need to put the icon of some tech or some icon in general at a step.

Prompt: Write the tech stack involved as - language, library, framework, and other tools. classify like the above or something similar so that I can add that text in the PPT.

PPT aesthetics

I have OCD and this is awesome.

Your PPT should be uniform, with consistent font, font size, and line spacing. Headings should be in the same place on each slide.

Avoid using useless boxes, and multiple colours, and follow the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle.

My PPTs

DefenderX (Made by me, selected)

EcoPost360 (Rejected, too much text, cluttered, made by teammates)

WattX (Idea dropped, PPT is mid, we were experimenting)

I hope you found these hacks useful, if you want to connect with me follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. To know more about me you can visit ayush.top.

Happy Hacking! 😊

~ Ayush