The Aubot team was invited to meet the Duke and Duchess of Sussex - that’s right, HRH Prince Harry and Meghan Markle! We showed them our robots. I wasn’t in Melbourne, so I teleported in to meet them via Teleport!!!
They spoke to me and the team for about 4 minutes! It was pretty surreal to be peering through my Teleport and looking directly at Prince Harry as he listened to the Governor of Victoria’s husband speak! Throughout I kept thinking, wow! They’re so close to me! I was so excited I had this cheesy grin on my face the entire time. Prince Harry kept looking over at me, inquisitively. It was really exciting for the team to meet royalty.
Unfortunately, we were’t allowed to take any photographs, or share official photographs. So here is a photo of our robots looking excited beforehand.
In May, we showcased our version 2 Teleport head prototype at ICRA in Brisbane.
In June, we showcased our version 2 Teleport prototype at TEDxSydney.
In September, we showcased our V2 suite - V2, V2PT, VR and VS robots at Tech Crunch Disrupt in San Francisco!
Now we are working on bringing our V2 suite to production and usability testing all the software! Let me know if you would like to user test any of our robots!
Choose Maths is an exciting 5 year, national project designed to empower and encourage Australian students (in particular girls) to pursue mathematics through to year 12 and beyond. Despite past efforts, the statistics show that in 2015 only 6.9 per cent of Year 12 girls studied advanced maths compared with 12.6 per cent of boys and the aim of Choose Maths is to turn this around.
I was chosen to be an ambassador in AMSI's Choose Maths campaign. As part of that, I have been placed on billboards and buses around Australia! To show that maths is more than textbooks and numbers - it’s exciting and innovative and can lead to a variety of jobs.
Here are a few of the billboards from around Australia.
Billboard in Brisbane (courtesy of Trevor)
Bus in Melbourne (courtesy of Kristin)
Bus in Sydney (courtesy of Adam Spencer!)
As well as that, the CHOOSEMATHS campaign made a video covering my journey with Robogals and Teleport.
Flyers, brochures and posters have also been distributed to high schools throughout Australia. To find out more, visit the AMSI website!
On 14 July 2008, I founded Robogals.
At the Robogals 10-year anniversary gala in Melbourne, I gave a speech alongside Mark Parncutt, co-founder of Robogals. I couldn’t be there in person, so I appeared via Teleport instead. :)
I’m shorter than Mark in real life, but I’m not that short! (You can adjust Teleport to make it taller, but the microphone was taped at that height for this event).
It was awesome to participate in the gala, even though I was in another country! And it was so cool to Teleport in to give my speech. :)
I gave a speech with my robot on stage at the Australian Water Association’s National Conference. It was super cool! My engineer Mack drove it from Melbourne onstage with me in Brisbane and told the audience all about the robot. I think it’s one thing to hear about the robot, another thing to see it in person and a whole other experience to actually use it. Here's Mack as a short Teleport.
Then Mack made himself a bit taller.
I travel frequently for speaking engagements and meetings. When I’m away from my team, I use the robot to log into the office to work with my team so they can give me a holler if they have any questions. I use Teleport about 2-3 times a week for many, many hours. I drive it right up to the engineer, peer at their screen and ask them how their work is going. They love having me around. :) It’s like I’m there in the office even though I’m interstate or in another country. It’s like magic!
Forbes 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.
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