Hi Andrea,

Andrea Crotti <andrea.crotti.0@gmail.com> writes:

[...]

What could be the "minimal" introduction needed before talking about

org-babel for a smart (but maybe not emacser) audience?

That's an excellent question, and I have no idea what the answer should
be.  The first step is certainly introducing Org-mode, maybe with a
focus on tables, and the export to html and LaTeX.  From there Org-babel
may best be described as the addition of active source code to Org-mode
documents.

I think Org-babel is most easily introduced through a couple of short
live demos hitting on the main points of functionality
- executing a source code block capturing the results in an org-mode buffer
- reading inputs from a table
- reading inputs from another source-code block
- tangling
- exporting an org file to html including soure-code block results
 and/or fontified code

Best of luck! -- Eric