DCWeek brainstorm graffiti by Patrick Donnelly
This past weekend we held a two day open forum at GW’s MPA amphitheater. After giving an overview of DCWEEK, we answered questions and facilitated discussions to help people hone in on projects they could lead, sessions they could host or other ways they could get involved.
Roughly 60 -70 people came through introducing themselves, letting us know what they were interested in, sharing ideas and offering to collaborate with others. As any event organizer knows, the earliest stages of collaboration can be some of the hardest, as everyone comes in with different ideas and lofty goals. Particularly in DC where interests range from government & policy to nonprofit, technology, education, health, food, fashion and more.
We have an extremely diverse city, hundreds of organizations and thousands of people who care. It’s important to us that we create an environment that makes it easy for people to create projects and find collaborators, yet keeps us out of the way so those teams can do what they do best. If we try to get overly involved in everything, nothing will get done! That said, we also have a responsibility to help curate incoming projects to prevent duplication and ensure each project has dedicated leadership. Our goal is to create a good balance of projects across various areas with high probability of completion.
As I left today’s session, walking past a large group who had left the meeting to collaborate on nonprofit issues, I felt a sense of awe.. and anxiety. There is so much work to be done! I think all of us feel at least a little overwhelmed sometimes by the sheer magnitude of what we have taken on. But also awe-inspired by the possibilities and knowing that while it seems like such a heavy-lift by just a few, it’ll actually be a lofty, yet well-distributed load.
From all of us, a sincere THANK YOU to everyone who joined in. Meeting so many passionate people is inspiring – it keeps us going. We’re thrilled about all that we will accomplish together!
What you can do now:
- Visit http://bit.ly/dcwlabs to become a Project Leader or team member
- Watch the video walk-through and flip through the overview of DCWEEK, below
