TEDxYYC - David Damberger - Learning from Failure

[buckshee1]

If there is no water in Malawi, why are they living there? why are there MILLIONS living there? why are we helping India, who has nuclear weapons and MILLIONS of engineers themselves??  how about some birth control??

[xSiloRx]

i guess we need technician without boarders to fix the problem :P

[zCLUBz]

Very good concept! I slut! this man because he speak with no shame for the shake of humanity

[BENGLETON]

This vid should have more views. Lets try n get this seen everyware

[tommmmmm]

One of the best TED talks ever!

[jojo455162089jojo]

whats that sound clip in the beginning and ending of tedxYYC videos? i just loved it

[marcelJunkMail]

If I was the president of Malawi, I would feel embarrassed if other countries have to come to my country and built taps... I would feel like a child being helped by an adult.

[mahballzrhari]

there are such good people in this world.

[slicingwater]

BP's failure was a lack of ethics.

[NiteOwl1983]

Can someone please explain how 5 million people get to the point of having no clean water? How could they survive to 5 million? How do they keep giving birth with no clean water? It just doesn't seem possible.

[murchie85]

That talk was both moving and informative, I really really think that if we had more people like David at the helm the world would be a far far better place.

[Milchmann2]

great talk

[hanluy1215]

kudos to him

[lallamalaughs]

I played floorball with Dave Hamburger!

[braveGurkhali]

I think the problem is, active participation works if we teach the local community itself about the survival. lets say how to build even if it things get damaged next time, recognizing skills in the community who could do that. Injecting donation will just make then more dependable. There could be more points rather than just admitting failure.

[georgefw55]

Truly excellent observation, David.

[tomdjwood]

Very Good David, i am a final year engineering student studying for an exam on sustainability. You raise interesting issues that aren't otherwise investigated. Too often do you hear propaganda and slander claiming everything is going perfectly and companies only informing the public of their successes. In reality they most be hiding many failures? I think the point you raise regarding public, private sectors etc. and the beneficiaries is particularly relevant.

[DrJamesARobertsonERP]

An interesting and thought provoking presentation

Studying and preventing failure is a fundamental engineering activity

[kwanylongy]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us, David Damberger.

I hope I could remember to review and admit my mistakes from time to time and also help spread this important message to others for many years to come.

[Zuuuuable]

Nice!

[xkv1922c]

this is the best talk that I have heard in my life. Really inspiring.

[CymroGoch]

@xkv1922c What did it inspire you to do?

[danushe5]

Oh it has failed enough, indeed. Not only NGOs but the UN system as well - the only difference is that they have more funds to cover their arses and make it look like a success story... Entropy in it's best!

[iHennigs]

@stonelli00 let me read the document this evening...

[stonelli00]

@iHennigs Engineers without Borders could have short-cut their learning curve by about 10 years...

[iHennigs]

@Hedonophobia @daviddamberger @stonelli00 Admiting their failures is the best what an organization can do. We shouldn't generalize but as David says the same mistakes are being made over and over again. Some organizations build a bridge in the middle of the desert because they think it is needed. Or let's buy "washing machines" for everybody in the village X with no electricity. Or let's take tones of milk powder from europe to the country Y endangering the existence of the local milk industry.

[stonelli00]

@iHennigs Yes, I know these things do happen time and again - even today. But there are other resons for organisations to continue doing those mistakes: political agendas and power plays, the need to dispurse budgets, getting rid of domestic overproduction, ... They do it against their better knowledge. They will gladly admit their failure and do it again the very next day. That's the patology of the system.

And again, many organisations are very diligent reporting their mistakes...

[stonelli00]

@ Hedonophobia @iHennigs @daviddamberger No, I don't know WHY those govs didn't. But I was knowledge manager for many years in a large NGO & our only goal was to admit mistakes and learn from them. And establishing local social structures & maintenance mechanisms have been the most important issue in our work already 20 years ago. I would love to send you an URL with exactly those documented experiences from many years ago - how can I post a URL in these comments? YouTube doesn't allow me to do.

[stonelli00]

Check the Website of the NGO Helvetas in Switzerland, and go to Advisory Services -> Professional Competences -> Documented Experiences -> Infrastructure (sorry, as I said, I cannot post URLs)

[stonelli00]

Go to the section "25 steps to safe water and sanitation" and download/read the document there!

[stonelli00]

@iHennigs @daviddamberger Sorry, iHenning, that's precisely not the case. I have worked for over 10 years with (many!) development organisations - NGOs and public organisations alike! - where admitting mistakes is done on a quite a massive scale. I am far from perfect and I don't know a lot, but I can rightfully and without exageration claim that I have never made a mistery out of this and have always made transparent where we can learn from those mistakes.

[Hedonophobia]

@stonelli00 Then you'll be able to educate us all on why the American and Canadian governments both installed water systems with no method of maintenance ten years apart wont you.

[oooodaxteroooo]

did he say aid INDUSTRY?

[dillmon1]

I agree completely and have had the same feelings when I tried helping.

[daviddamberger]

Stonelli00, David here. You are completely correct that these lessons have been learnt many times in the past 20-40 years. The unfortunate thing is that an astonishing number of NGO's and development agencies are still making these same mistakes over and over. EWB has made many of them as well. The public discourse around international development is still heavily biased towards "building schools, drilling wells, and giving things for free". My objective was to challenge that message

[reportedmissing]

@daviddamberger really insightful talk specially as im studying development studies get discouraged as to how we can actually make a difference when historically seems like aid dosnt work. Best thing bout your talk was that you came up with what can be done as a result.. i think you are right changing the paradigm of how we evaluate projects and accept our mistakes is important strangely its more common practice in the private sector.. great talk do let us know of any other talks

[stonelli00]

I'm sorry, but the first 10 minutes are old hat! We have learned every single sentence already 20 years ago (even before David was born) - except David, who presents them as if they were something revolutionary and new, a big break-through that came to him and EwB! David, why didn't you educate yourself first from those who have been in business for many years? I don't understand how this fits into the TED series...

[iHennigs]

@stonelli00 @daviddamberger

There are probably two kind of people in the aid industry: people like stonelli00 that were either born as a perfect human being knowing everything what is right or perfectly educated to be afraid of and to avoid making mistakes; or people like David, that have the courage to admit their mistakes and that are able to learn something from them.

I'm studying development studies and I truly believe that aid has failed. But David gives us a hope.

Davids talk is inspiring

[up4change]

Important video - thank you - this is the way to change

[ChristineLumgair]

Excellent presentation. David - you are courageous to be so vulnerable in this presentation. Thank-you for giving me permission to look at my own failures in a positive light.