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You Are Invited to Fail Faire DC 2012

By Wayan Vota on October 25, 2012

Fail Faire DC 2012 is a celebration of failure as a mark of innovation and risk-taking. Like our event in 2011, we will have great speakers with fun, fast, Ignite-style presentations of their professional failures.

Audience participation is not only encouraged, it is mandatory! We are all peers and none of us is perfect. Expect much laughter as we navel-gaze at where we have all gone wrong in ICT and international development.

Yet we will LEARN from failure. Failure is no reason to be ashamed. Failure shows leadership, innovation, and risk-taking in pushing the boundaries of what is possible in scaling ideas from pilots to global programs. There is great value in examining our mistakes as we go beyond the easy and the simple. So while we encourage irreverence and humor, we will be improving our profession too.

Wanna join us? RSVP today!

We will have light refreshments to lubricate the conversation and there will be an after-party to continue the celebration. Just check out previous Fail Faire events: postspictureslast year’s event

Fail Faire DC 2012 will be hosted by the World Bank on November 16th in downtown Washington, DC. Those that RSVP will be sent the specific location just before the event.

Agenda:

  1. 6:00pm: Welcome and drinks
  2. 6:30pm: #FAIL-Slam
  3. 7:30pm: Open Discussion
  4. 8:00pm: Mingling, learning, networking, more drinks

Featured Speakers (so far)

  1. Dr. Tessie San Martin, CEO, Plan International USA
  2. Patty Mechael, Executive Director, mHealth Alliance
  3. Sean McDonald, CEO, FrontlineSMS
  4. Christine Prefontaine, Founder, Facilitating Change
  5. James Bontempo, Director of ICT & Innovation, JHU-CCP
  6. Chris Doten, Senior Program Officer, NDI Tech
  7. Anahi Ayala Iacucci, Media Innovation Advisor, Internews
  8. Neelley Hicks, Special Projects Manager, United Methodist Communications
  9. Dustin Homer, Associate, Development Gateway
  10. More to come…..
  11. Want to present? Then apply today!

So what are you waiting for? RSVP now – there will be a waitlist.

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Written by
Wayan Vota co-founded ICTworks. He also co-founded Technology Salon, MERL Tech, ICTforAg, ICT4Djobs, ICT4Drinks, JadedAid, Kurante, OLPC News and a few other things. Opinions expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of his employer, any of its entities, or any ICTWorks sponsor.
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4 Comments to “You Are Invited to Fail Faire DC 2012”

  1. John Hawker says:

    Sorry, but again I’ll ask, can you please get some of the communities who were affected by “Fail” to talk, about their lost political capital, their promises broken by others, the disappointment they felt when “we” all walk away and leave behind the mess for locals to clean up.

    From the speaker list it looks a pretty predominantly Western line-up of “Fails”.

    Sorry, Mr Negativity when it comes to Fail Fare, but until I see an equal number of “locals” describing their problems brought on by “Fail” then I’ll remain that way.

    I know my last project caused LOCAL problems when it failed, for those in the villages I was supposed to be helping.

    It seem to me to be the part we fail to address, by not inviting those affected to speak.

    It’s their voices I want people to hear, so you think twice about your project.

  2. Wayan Vota says:

    I agree that we should have the local voice, those that we impact (good or bad) with our efforts. That’s why we had a Fail Faire in Benin, where “Westerners” were a minority in the line up and in the room. At the same time, the Fail Faire model is an open one – you can organize a local event in your community or at any event you see fit.

    If you’d like to see more “non-Westerners” in this year’s Fail Faire, please ask those you want to present to apply and work with them on the logistics to get to DC. I’ll happily welcome them.

  3. Ally Krupar says:

    Will this be recorded and posted online for those of us outside of the DC metro area?

  4. John Hawker says:

    That’s a nice idea and very welcoming of you, but with no funds left, i.e. the project “Failed”, just how do we manage logistics? Or should we assume we’ll fail and keep money aside for this when applying to budgets? The last my usual dry humour.

    I’d love to see more of these outside “The West” and heartily congratulate you on Benin event, and as it’s a open event, it does give me incentive to suggest this format to be used in Cambodia/Laos etc where I am more familiar with those organising events.