• 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

  • No one puts Baby in the corner

    I was at West End watching “Dirty Dancing” the other night. In the foyer, there were t-shirts embossed with, “I carried a watermelon”, and “No one...

  • Remembering my piano teacher Mrs Langtree

    When people ask me abut my influences growing up, I tell them about my piano teacher, Mrs Langtree. I went to my first piano lesson when I was 7...

  • What's in it for them?

    What's in it for the other person? If you look at everything from this perspective, you can get anything you want in life.

  • Chinese History Museum

    The Chinese History Museum invited me to be part of their exhibition on notable Chinese Australians. In February, over Chinese New Year, my mum came to...

  • Robogals 10-Year Anniversary Gala

    On 14 July 2008, I founded Robogals. At the Robogals 10-year anniversary gala in Melbourne, I gave a speech alongside Mark Parncutt, co-founder of...

  • Jevaroo - pouring a glass of water

    Here is our 8-degree-of-freedom robotic arm Jevaroo, pouring a glass of water and then moving around to show its range of movements!

  • Piano lessons

    When I was younger, we couldn't afford a piano at home, so my mum would take me to my piano teacher's house each day to practise for an hour. I...

  • Nail painting robot

    A robot friend suggested we go and get our nails painted by a robot!  So we went and did that!  The first time I saw a nail painting robot was at CES...

  • What's in a name?

    From August 2009 to August 2011, I was the "Founder and Director of Robogals Global".  Before that, my title was "Founder", and we hadn't created...

  • 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...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top