MobileActive.org

FAILfaire Returns to New York on December 14th!

The fourth FAILfaire, this time in New York City on December 14th, will be an evening dedicated to those tech and mobile projects that were designed to have a social impact but instead crashed, burned, and FAILED. FAILfaire NYC is presented by MobileActive.org and hosted by the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, with participation from UNICEF's Innovation Unit.

If you do not know about Failfaire, here is some background: Launched in early 2010, there have now been three FAILfaires, events designed to provide a platform for those working in online and mobile technology for social change to openly, honestly (and humorously) discuss our own failures.

As noted in the New York Times’ piece on FAILfaire, “Technology’s potential to bring about social good is widely extolled, but its failures, until now, have rarely been discussed by nonprofits who deploy it.” Well, FAILfaire is changing that, and is doing so in style. The format is informal, the discussions are rich, and the refreshments are adult and, well, refreshing.

Slate.com wrote that FailFaire “...[isn’t] about celebrating failure just for the sake of failure, but about taking lessons from each mistake and using them to create more efficient, economical, and accessible projects that could have a greater effect on a community.” We couldn’t agree more!

To join us, please RSVP here, as the event will fill up quickly.

If you like to be considered as a presenter for the next FAILfaire, go to failfaire.org and submit a note about your failed project and what we can learn from it.

FAILFaire DC is open for registration!

We are very pleased to announce FAILFaire DC, in collaboration with the World Bank Institute: Innovation Practice. FAILFaire DC will take place on July 26th at the Bank. We will feature again, as we did in New York, mobile-for-development and other technology-for-development projects that failed.  Join us for lightening talks that focus on the learnings of the projects – and what can be done differently in the future.

We have some presenters already from the Bank and from various NGOs who will be presenting their failures but we encourage you to submit a failure here if you like to be considered for a talk during the event. The format is informal, and we will provide refreshments and drinks. We are looking forward to learning from failure in DC!

Reflections on Learning from Failure from a #FailFaire Attendee

On Wednesday evening I was lucky enough to attend the first ever "Failfaire", organized by MobileActive.org where several brave souls agreed to present their failed "Information Technology for Development" projects, explaining why they failed and what they learned from them.

I work on knowledge management in UNICEF, and have a strong interest in improving how we learn from our experience. This event (which was certainly not a failure!) was interesting to our  work from at least two points of view:

1. The lessons learned from the projects themselves

2. The idea for the event itself and whether this might be something we could try ourselves.

There were four presentations during the meeting:

Bradford Frost presented on Mobileimpact.org a project to recycle old cellphones and donate them to Africa.

Presenting the First-Ever FAILfaire: Join Us!

Calling all failures!  On April 14 we're hosting the first FAILfaire featuring a close look at ICT and mobile development projects that have crashed, burned, and simply FAILED.  

While we often focus on highlighting successes and gains in this field, it's no secret that many projects just don't work - some aren't scalable, some aren't sustainable, some can't get around bureaucratic hoops, and many fail due to completely unanticipated barriers. FAILfaire is a platform to openly and honestly discuss failures so that we can learn from what hasn't worked in the past in order to make our future projects stronger and better.   

This is where YOU come in. Have you been a part of a project that flopped? Maybe the project used the wrong technology for its region. Maybe it didn't engage the intended community.  Did not take culture, people, or both into consieration. Or maybe the rollout was too rushed. Whatever the reason, we want to hear from you.