I was named an Asian Society Game Changer Award winner alongside architect IM Pei (Lifetime Achievement Award), movie director Zhang Yimou, and the founder of K-Pop and S.M. Entertainment, Soo-Man Lee. It was held at the United Nations in New York City on 27 October.

Other awardees included eye surgeon and co-founder of the Himalayan Cataract Project Sanduk Ruit, conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra and renowned cellist Karim Wasfi, Founder of Impact Investment Exchange Asia Durreen Shahnaz, refugee education champion Muzoon Almellehan, and founder and director of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, Ahmad Sarmast.  Princess Beatrice of York and former Prime Minister of Australia were also present at the ceremony, as can be seen in the photo below.

It was surreal to be recognised amongst these luminaries.

SBS came and filmed a short segment at the 2Mar Robotics office for their SBS Small Business Secrets program.  It aired on 23 October.

Watch the preview here on Facebook, and watch the segment on SBS on Demand.

On 28 August 2016, I was invited to Taiwan by Foxconn to speak at the H.Spectrum by Yonglin Healthcare Startup Conference.  I gave a 15-minute presentation about my robots and then spoke on a panel.  My fellow panelists were Partha Unnava, the CEO and Founder of Better Walk, which has made a crutch that doesn’t hurt a user’s armpits, and Managing Director at Iron Yard Ventures Marty Bauer.  The conference was really nice to their speakers and gave each of us an "angel", a volunteer to look after us.  Here I am backstage with my fellow panelists and my angel.

We spoke after Adora Cheung, a partner at Y Combinator.  Afterwards, Adora and I went shrimp fishing together with our angels.  This shrimp place is famous.  Three pools where the restaurant throws in fresh live shrimp every hour.  People smoking, networking and doing business surrounding the pools.

After 1.5 hours, I didn't catch a single shrimp with my fishing rod.  I was encouraged to just use my hands.  On three occasions, shrimp was within my reach.  And on three occasions, the shrimp got away.

Thankfully, others in my group caught some shrimp.  There were grills at the side for you to cook your own shrimp.

The best part of shrimp fishing = eating the catch of the day.

I went to a Night Market later that night.  I told my angels I wanted to eat all the weirdest foods.  So I ate kidney, liver, durian, intestines, fungus and squid.  I got to drink my favourite bubble tea - taro milk tea with pearls - with actual chunks of taro!

So much variety to choose from.  It was so yummy and so cheap.  I can't wait to go back.

In the Philippines, I spoke at the 14th MAP International CEO Conference in front of 1500 people on 6 September.  It was great to share my work with CEOs from around the world, and then participate in an interview.

Great to go back to San Francisco in August for our Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program Reunion. So proud of my classmates, their projects and how far they’ve come.  Here are some of the projects my classmates are working on (both SU companies and non-SU companies).

• Awake Labs - A wearable for autism that measures and tracks anxiety to help you better understand behaviour and prevent meltdowns. (Andrea Palmer)
• Iris AI - will analyze the abstract of your research paper, present the key concepts, and link those with other research papers.  Use the tool at https://the.iris.ai.  (Anita Schjøll Brede, Maria Ritola, Jacobo Elosua)

• ImpactVision - building a more transparent and effective global food system, using hyperspectral technology. (Abi Ramanan, Gustav Nipe)
• Emerge - currently refining the "mid air touch" concept, where ultrasound waves generate pressure to enhance the experience of virtual reality users. (Sly Lee, Isaac Castro, Mauricio Terán)

• Miracle Messages - helps homeless people record short video messages to their dearly missed loved ones, and then attempts to reunite them using social media. (Kevin Adler)
• Neurescue™ - developing a new class of medical devices for the treatment of cardiac arrest. The Neurescue™ device is a small, computer-controlled balloon catheter that is inserted into a blood vessel in the leg, the femoral artery, and occludes the aorta in order to redistribute the blood flow generated by chest compressions to the two most sensitive organs; the heart and brain. (Habib Frost)

• Bloomer - working to end heard disease through early detection via smart clothing. (Alicia Chong, Ana Karen Ramirez, Monica Abarca, Liddy Kiaty Figueroa, Einstein Ntim)
• iHelmut - a next generation helmut to keep motorcyclists safe on the road. This innovation won $500k in the Verizon Powerful Answers Competition in 2015. (Ganindu Nanayakkara)
• AIME - the platform provides its users with the exact geo location and date of the next dengue outbreak, 3 months in advance. (Dhesi Raja, Rainier Mallol)
• Future Lighthouse - a video production company that tells stories in virtual reality. (Nicolas Alcala)
• Vestigo - a place to find independent outdoor guides who lead trips in your area. (Marshall Mosher)

It’s so cool to have a group of friends who are working on improving the world using exponential technologies on an international scale!

Actually, this has made me curious.  So I crunched some numbers.  From my calculations, 62% of the 79 people in my class at Singularity are full-time entrepreneurs in a venture they founded or co-founded, and 65% of the 79 people are either full-time or part-time entrepreneurs as a founder or co-founder.  The part-time entrepreneurs are also studying.

To my knowledge, 19 of my 79 classmates are still working on their SU projects they presented onstage at our final pitch session.

Alberto and I gave a speech about Aipoly at TEDxMelbourne, where we showcased Aipoly Vision being used via glasses.  Aipoly has now been downloaded 120,000 times.