Proposal Jam | VizChitra

Our annual conference - VizChitra 2025 is set to take place on June 27-28 in Bangalore and the Call for Proposals is open until April 15. To help everyone craft a strong proposal and make a submission, or address any queries around submissions, we hosted a Proposal Jam!

Whether it was a designer, journalist, analyst, coder, or artist, this was a chance to:
🗣 Understand different kind of talks & workshops
💡 Learn what makes a compelling proposal
❓ Ask all your CFP-related questions
🛠 Refine your submission ideas
🤝 Connect with fellow dataviz enthusiasts

Transcript

2. 🎉 Welcome to the proposal jam 🎉 While we wait, tell us 
 where you are joining from in the chat!

3. Agenda • Why speak at VizChitra and how?
 • Guidelines for talks
 • What can you speak about? Frameworks + Sample Talks
 • Jam Time! A 10-minute activity
 • How are proposals evaluated?
 • Q/A

4. What to expect from VizChitra community? Consider & Curate Attend & get inspired through events
 Cultivate & Care Learn & grow through workshops & mentorship
 Create & Collaborate Connect & build across different domains

5. “To build a strong community of interdisciplinary individuals with a shared interest in the practice of data visualisation across India.”
6. “How can I speak at VizChitra?”
7. 📝 Propose a session 🎤 Speak at the conference vizchitra.com/cfp
 

8. Spread the love 3601473 https://app.sli.do/event/aLcBmP2VML2KTBf5NvMdDT
9. Why Speak at VizChitra? Your everyday work might be someone else’s aha! moment.
10. • Share your insights with a curious, engaged audience. • Grow as a storyteller and contribute to a thriving community. • Diverse perspectives matter in dataviz. We welcome voices from underrepresented communities. Why Speak at VizChitra?
11. Themes for VizChitra 2025 Explain & Learn Explore & Play Imagine & Innovate
12. Speak & Present Talk about your work, reflections, ideas…
 Standard Talk (30 mins)
 Lightning Talk (15 mins)
 Teach & Facilitate Immerse into new skills, interests…
 Hands-on Workshop (3 hrs)
 Unconference / Birds of Feather Session (45 mins)
 Choose your format Propose something new
13. Guidelines for talks at VizChitra

14. Guidelines for talks at VizChitra Conference
 
 General You can apply as an individual or as team. No hiring or product pitches No explicit content such as sexual imagery in presentations
15. Guidelines for talks at VizChitra Conference
 
 General Sponsored talks You can apply as an individual or as team. No hiring or product pitches No explicit content such as sexual imagery in presentations Talks must go through curation and rehearsal. Talks will be marked as “sponsored” for transparency
16. Guidelines for talks at VizChitra Conference
 
 General Sponsored talks Remote talks You can apply as an individual or as team. No hiring or product pitches No explicit content such as sexual imagery in presentations Talks must go through curation and rehearsal. Talks will be marked as “sponsored” for transparency In-person talks preferred. Limited spots for virtual talks, only if the speaker is international Only one remote talk slot per track
17. What can you speak about ?
18. “One human life, closely observed, is everyone’s life. In the particular is the universal.”
 – Roger Ebert

19. Talk Types – “Think Stories, Not Slides” Stories talk
 Weave long & short anecdotes to guide.
 Interactive talk
 Integrate audience. Engagement with Q&A.
 Demo talk
 Exemplar driven. Doing multiple demos.
 Visual talk
 Show, not tell. Anchor through visuals.
 Process talk
 Illustrate process. Share war stories. 
 Narrative talk
 Singular arc. Showcase with main visual.
 Performance talk
 Live visualisation & creation on the stage.
 Find more details & examples at amitkaps.com/stories
 Conceptual talk
 Build understanding. Stepwise explainer.

20. Example – Rejected Talk Proposal Thinking Narrative Visualization
 An important part of a data scientist/data analyst/data journalist's role is to communicate the insights from the data. Traditional presentation formats have been slide decks, spreadsheets or a BI dashboard. Most of them are designed to be self-served. That introduces a challenge for the analyst - the story she wanted to communicate may not come across naturally.
 
 Narrative visualisation is a way to present analyses, thought processes and insights - all in one document.
 
 This talk introduces narrative visualization and provides pointers on tools and best practices on how to think and design narrative visualisations.
 Generic introduction, but not specific about the talk
 Needs more details on what you want to achieve in the talk
 No clear outline on how the talk would be delivered
 No speaker bio to indicate why you are the best person to deliver this talk

21. Example – Accepted Talk Proposal (1 of 2) Learning Djembe Visually with p5.js
 What if we could learn music visually? It would be great if we could learn the djembe not only by playing it and by listening to it, but also seeing it visually. We will use p5.js to visualise music. That’s it.
 Outline 
 Music visualisation is not new. Winamp and iTunes have been doing it for years. But they are designed to augment the aural senses with a nice visual display. But what if we could visualise music for not only our aesthetic senses but also for learning the music. We all learn differently - aurally, symbolically, visually and kinesthetically. We will have live djembe play and see if we can all learn music visually together. This is a live demo and what could possibly go wrong!
 • How can we see sound?
 • Can we see how loud it is? Can we see all parts of it?
 • We can all tap to a beat. Can we find the beat and show it?
 • Can we show the pattern in the beat? Boom Boom Pa!
 Short & crisp summary about the whole talk
 Clear steps & details on what will be covered
 Context setting around why this talk is different

22. Example – Accepted Talk Proposal (2 of 2) For the technically inclined, we will leverage HTML canvas and Javascript Web Audio API using p5.js. But basically this is a fun talk to explore creative coding to learn new things.
 Requirements
 None. Just come and listen and see the music live!
 Speaker bio
 Amit Kapoor is interested in learning and teaching the craft of telling visual stories with data. He uses storytelling and data visualization as tools for improving communication, persuasion and leadership. He conducts workshops and trainings for corporates, non-profits, colleges, and individuals at narrativeVIZ Consulting. You can find more about him at amitkaps.com and tweet him at @amitkaps
 Ashok Kumar is an accomplished djembe - an African drum - player. He has been playing djembe for more than 15 years and has done numerous performances both as a soloist as well as with his band - Shoonya World Music. You can watch him play in this clip and can find more about him at jembeashok.com
 Making clear this is fun and a live performance
 Showing musical capability for live performances
 Establishing credibility &
 capability for visualisation
 Explaining how the talk will be technically achieved

23. Let’s Jam! bit.ly/vizchitrajam
24. Workshop Types – “Think Ladder of Abstraction” Exemplar workshop
 Teach how to replicate an great example.
 Zero to One workshop
 Teach who to get started on a topic.
 Tool Deep Dive workshop
 Teach how to use a viz tool well. 
 X to 10X workshop
 Teach how to expand niche viz capability.
 Find more examples at github.com/amitkaps/proposals
 Learning by Reflections
 Planning for Application
 Experimenting & Practicing
 Assimilating & Conceptualizing

25. How are proposals evaluated?
26. Strong Accept ✔
 Maybe ?
 Reject ❌
 1.
 Proposal Outline
 The abstract is crisp and precise. The proposer has outlined the flow of their talk well. The proposer has made the effort to explain the key takeaways and the audience for their talk. The problem statement explained in the abstract is interesting (OR) the proposer has touched upon a new and upcoming area of innovation/work, but the flow of the talk needs work. The description is thin. The proposer has been lazy to not include too many details. 2.
 Idea Quality
 The core idea is original, engaging, and captures the conference themes/spirit. The idea has merit but lacks novelty or doesn't fully align with conference themes. The idea is derivative, unfocused, or misaligned with conference themes. 3.
 Value of Takeaways
 The takeaways are clear and relevant to the topic at hand. They are practical and innovative - something that the conference audience will benefit from. The takeaways for the audience are not very clear, but may have potential. Some refinement is needed. The takeaways are fairly generic or common knowledge (OR) takeaways are unclear. 4.
 Audience Alignment
 The speaker is able to define the target audience along with their interests, skill levels, and needs. The audience is broadly defined but lacks specific targeting or understanding of needs The proposer has not identified a clear audience or has misunderstood the attendee profile. 5.
 Expertise
 The speaker is knowledgeable about the content they are presenting. They demonstrate significant depth in critical areas. The speaker is knowledgeable but lacks depth in critical areas of presentation The speaker demonstrates authority on the topic.knowledge but lacks depth in insufficient expertise or critical areas of the presentation.
27. • Communicate with the proposer
 • Proposer to prepare draft slides or a mind map explaining the flow of the talk.
 • Conduct the first review
 • Confirm the talk and move to marketing the speaker and their content
 What is the process? Strong Accept
28. • Communicate with the proposer
 • Conduct the first review to understand the contents, flow and takeaways from the speaker. Give rigorous feedback.
 • Conduct the second review and request the proposer to submit draft slides or a mind map
 • Re-evaluate the submission
 What is the process? Maybe
29. • Communicate with the proposer
 • Constructive comments will be left for the proposer to add more details to the submission
 • Proposer to consider feedback and submit a refined proposal
 • Re-evaluate the submission
 What is the process? Reject
30. Deadline to submit your proposal
 15th April, 2025
31. Q/A
32. “So when is the conference?”
33. VizChitra Conference
 Bangalore International Center
 27th June, 2025
34. VizChitra Workshops
 Across Bengaluru
 28th June, 2025
35. vizchitra.com
36. FAQ
37. Q: Do speakers get extra tickets? A: The conference ticket is only issued to the speaker. Anyone accompanying the speaker has to buy their own ticket to attend the conference. Q: Are speakers paid? A: Speakers will be paid an honorarium of INR 3,000 per talk and Instructors honorarium will be INR 5,000 per workshop. Q: Are you paying for travel and accommodation? A: We have budgeted for outstations speakers traveling within India, on need basis. (Please reach out to us for more details) Q: Are you feeding us? A: If the conference has a food court, speakers will be given a lunch coupon to redeem for lunch.
38. What if I have questions later?
39. Ask us in the Whatsapp community vizchitra.com/friends or write to us at hello@vizchitra.com
40. Thank you!