That good "F" word: the beauty and necessity of failure

According to Albert Einstein: ‘A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new’. Join this dynamic and interactive evening with our ‘failure panel’ - leaders and entrepreneurs from business, arts, research and the community to understand and celebrate the beauty and necessity of failure and its role in innovation. Bar opens at 5.30pm.

Failure Panel:

Chris Krishna-Pillay (moderator)

Chris Krishna-Pillay is one of Australia’s most prominent science communicators and performers. His writing and performing credits include, Howard Florey – a Tale of Tall Poppies, Somnium, Pre-Coital, Dante’s Laboratory and Ologism.

Chris has appeared on television on Outrageous Acts of Science (Discovery Channel), Today, Scope and Totally Wild. He is also a regular panelist on popular radio program Einstein A Go Go (Triple R radio), and was science consultant for children’s television series Wicked Science (Network Ten).

Jamie Green

A serial entrepreneur, having established four businesses before the age of 24.

When personal experiences with social hardship shifted his focus to Social Business, Jamie founded One Night Stand Sleepwear, a social fashion label supporting young people sleeping rough, and is fast becoming an influential player in the social enterprise space.

Clare Harding

Clare is Deputy Director of the Melbourne Accelerator Program (MAP) at the University of Melbourne. As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford she wrote a thesis on Samuel Beckett, the entrepreneur’s epigramist: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

She has mused on the fine line between failure and success ever since, on a journey that has taken her from co-founding a social enterprise, to McKinsey, the Victorian Government, her own consulting practice, and finally – so far – on to MAP.

Paul Fenwick

Paul Fenwick is an internationally acclaimed public speaker, developer, and science educator. Paul is well known for presenting on a diverse range of topics including privacy, neuroscience and neuroethics, Klingon programming, open source, depression and mental health, advancements in science, diversity, autonomous agents, and minesweeper automation. His dynamic presentation style and quirky humour has delighted audiences worldwide.

Paul was awarded the 2013 O’Reilly Open Source award, and the 2010 White Camel award, both for outstanding contributions to the open source community.

As a Freedom Loving Scientist, Paul’s goal is to learn everything he can, do amazing things with that knowledge, and give them away for free.

Jacyl Shaw

Jacyl Shaw is the Director of Engagement of the Carlton Connect Initiative, Australia’s leading innovation precinct anchored by the University of Melbourne. She is well known amongst university, community and industry colleagues for her enthusiasm, tenacity and strategic creativity to ‘boundary span’ and create new interdisciplinary opportunities.

If the meaning of ‘Fail’ is indeed “First Attempt In Learning” then Jacyl has attempted to learn over the years through diverse roles. She has been an actress, a corporate lawyer, a mother, a Judges Associate of the Supreme Court of Victoria running murder trials and worked at the University in international education, cultural programs like the Festival of Ideas and at Asialink and the Australia India Institute. With a thirst to always learn formally (she has a BA, LLB, LLM and MEnt) and informally, she tries to learn by failure and celebrate the life lessons that the (good) F word can provide.

The Carlton Connect Initiative (CCI) is creating Australia’s premier innovation precinct, anchored by the University of Melbourne. CCI brings together people from diverse disciplines in business, government and academia to tackle pressing challenges in water, food, energy and urbanisation. CCI leads a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, especially in science and technology.

Please note this event is wheelchair accessible.

Melbourne Knowledge Week

Melbourne Knowledge Week 2016 has over 60 horizon-expanding events where you can explore the innovation, creativity and technology shaping our future. This is your chance to connect with our knowledge sector’s most innovative ideas and thinkers to help co-create the city we want and need.

An interactive program of workshops, meet ups, networking sessions, talks, debates, tech activations, exhibitions, opening and closing parties, and more. For seven days the festival brings people together to grapple with the interconnected challenges and opportunities our city is facing today.