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

How the community keeps you going

Published: Thursday, 04 April 2013

When I first started Robogals, the first thing I did was tell people about my vision and ask that they sign on to join.

From that, I got a team of 3 female science and engineering students - Kelly Chiu, Ann Chee Lim and Vi Vu.

From week one, I delegated roles for us all.  Kelly was the secretary, and Ann Chee and Vi would work on the robotics lessons and competition.  My job was to call schools (because no one else wanted to do that), recruit more people, and just make the whole thing work.

Then I found more people to help build the vision.  Through a friend of a friend, I found Adam Falconer, who designed the Robogals logo and then stayed on to be the Creative Design Manager.

I found Daniel Huang, a friend of mine who lived with me at Janet Clarke Hall, my halls of residence, to be the treasurer.  Mark Parncutt took on the role of Sponsorship Manager.  He found Felicity Zhou to help him out…

I just kept telling people about Robogals.  If they were interested, then I would find out a skill they wanted to learn, then assign them tasks so they could develop those skills.

This created a whole community of people working on Robogals in the first few months.  That was inspiring to me, because it meant that even while I was working on Robogals, other people were as well, and the impact of our work was compounded.

After 2.5 months, I left Melbourne to move to London for 10 months.  I always knew that I was going to do this, so it had been arranged from week 1 that Kelly would take on the role of President when I left.

Fast forward a year later, and I'd expanded Robogals to 5 chapters in Australia, and 1 chapter in the UK.  That was really exciting, and I felt so happy!

Then I expanded Robogals to a further 5 chapters in the UK.  That was even more exciting, but also really stressful.

By that stage, Robogals had 11 chapters in Australia and the UK.  There were all these people - all these female engineering students working on Robogals and working on getting more girls interested in engineering.

I was really busy - trying to manage it all, keep up with people from all over the world, develop new projects, while figuring out a system so that we could compartmentalise roles and create processes, so that the things I was doing could be replicated.  It was really hard, and it took a lot of time, but the thing that kept me going, was knowing there were hundreds of people all over the world, working towards our vision.  I didn't want to let them down.  I wanted them to feel proud to be a part of the organisation and the community.  And so I just worked my hardest in order to create that.

Creating stuff is hard.  If you build a community around what you're doing though, the thought of their energy and spirit will keep you going.

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

  • BigSpeak Top 10 Female Speaker

    BigSpeak named me one of top 10 female keynote speakers and one of their top 10 technology keynote speakers! I am utterly delighted! I only...

  • Clarity in thought

    Clear away some space and time for yourself. Without the pressure of someone bursting in and occupying your space. By giving yourself the time and...

  • Nexus Impact Accelerator Fellow

    I spent the last few days of February in Washington DC attending the Nexus Global Summit as a Nexus Impact Accelerator Fellow. NEXUS is a global...

  • Aipoly at Singularity University

    Aipoly aims to help the blind navigate the world. Our first application enables blind people to take a photo of their surroundings, and have it...

  • #TechMyWay with Ashton Kutcher

    Spoke at a Lenovo event by myself for 12 minutes and then on a panel with Ashton Kutcher.  Met with Hollywood’s Steve Jobs and had a yarn about...

  • Scrap paper

    I write all my blog posts on scrap paper. I printed so many speeches last year that I have all these A4 scrap sheets of paper that just have...

  • Think more

    All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. Blaise Pascal One of my favourite things to do is to sit there and...

  • World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

    Spoke in Hong Kong at the the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) on 9 July.  The WAGGGS is the largest voluntary organisation...

  • YouthActionNet Global Fellowship Preparations

    On 17 May this year, over two months after I'd submitted my application, I received an exciting email in my inbox.  "Congratulations!  You have been...

  • Being a great customer

    I was in a hairdressers in Melbourne. I was 18. it was the first time I’d ever been to a hairdressers to get my hair cut in my life! It was at a...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top