• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

Losing focus

Published: Wednesday, 30 January 2013

From an organisational point of view, it's better to focus on doing a small number of things right, than a large number of things wrong.

In September 2009, I held a Guinness World Record attempt for the Largest Robot Dance.  About 350 people attended.  In September 2010, I held the Robots Are Coming robotics art exhibition in the middle of Wynyard Park.  Over 100,000 people saw the exhibition during the course of that week.

Both these events were followed by 3-day conferences that I organised and ran.  That was tiring.

In October 2010, I was exhausted, and I decided I would not hold an event like that again.  I decided Robogals Global would focus on running robotics workshops very well and to only run large projects that directly achieved our aim of getting girls interested in engineering.  Instead, we would encourage Robogals chapters to hold community events like the Robot Dance and Robotic Art Exhibition if they were interested in doing so in their communities.

By doing that, Robogals is able to develop up a core number of programs, while Robogals chapters around the world are given the freedom and support to do amazing things around the world, such as Robogals Caltech consulting with Disney Pixar on a movie about "Tinkerbell:  the engineer", tea parties held by Robogals Western Australia, Robogals Girls in Robotics Days by Robogals University of Queensland, and Robogals London's collaborations with the London Science Museum holding themed robotics holiday workshops.

Focus on getting a small number of things right, and it will enable you to grow into doing a larger number of things right.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • Nancy Fairfax Churchill Fellowship

    From January to March this year, I travelled to Germany, the UK, the USA and Jamaica to study "Strategies to get girls interested in science,...

  • Australian of the Year Award winners video

    The Australian Department of Home Affairs decided to celebrate the Australian of the Year awards with this short animated video of past award...

  • A critical analysis

    Critics are those who stand on the sidelines waiting for you to muck up so they can laugh at you, point out your mistakes gleefully and then...

  • Orlando

    I went to Orlando and gave three speeches in 4 days! I spoke to Baxter Healthcare virtually about failure - my failures, failing fast, failing...

  • Unless people you’re working with support you, you are going to fail

    Who are the guys that you are going to have pizza with when you successfully raise capital? Who are the guys that are going to inspire you? Who are...

  • 24 hours and QANTAS Magazine

    I did an interview at the beginning of the year about 24 hours in the life of me.  I've copied and pasted the text here below.  Enjoy! For robotics...

  • I've done what I've done

    When I became Young Australian of the Year a year ago, I wanted to give as many speeches as I physically could, I wanted to contribute to the...

  • Complaining is silly

    Either act, or forget. Talking about someone else behind their back makes no difference to them, and all the difference to you. Your friends have to...

  • Reasons

    Why, excuses, rationale, justifications, explanations, verbal diarrhoea, reasons, etc. In the end, the myriad and infinite possibility of reasons...

  • TEDxSydney

    From January - May this year, I worked on the first prototype of the production model of my telepresence robot, Teleroo.Teleroo was launched onstage at the...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top