On this day, 10 years ago, I was named the "Young Australian of the Year", by the Prime Minister of Australia, in front of Parliament House, on Australia Day, in front of 1 million people.

That day changed my life.

Four years before that, as a second year university student, I founded Robogals to get girls interested in engineering through going to schools and teaching robotics. Within a few years, we expanded internationally throughout UK and Europe and North America. Robogals became a movement with thousands of people working together to inspire the next generation.

Overnight, I received hundreds of speaking requests, Robogals raised enough money to be sustainable without me and we increased our impact around the world many times over.

When I looked back in late 2012, it didn't feel like much had changed at all.  I was still living in the same house, I was still rushing around running Robogals, i was still a university student!  But looking back even a few years later - I know that everything changed that day.

Now Robogals is a thriving organisation with a strong board, and a talented leadership team, continuing our mission 14 years later throughout the world.

Since then, I have cofounded AI company Aipoly to help blind people recognise objects in their everyday lives, and founded robotics company Aubot, that has designed, manufactured and distributed robots that help people in their everyday lives throughout Australia. We’ve had hundreds of thousands of users, reached tens of millions of people and won awards all over the world. The award I’m most proud of is being named the youngest member of the Order of Australia “for significant service to science and technology, particularly to robotics,” in 2019 (aka my “knighthood” as my friends like to call it).

When I was 20, I thought about what I wanted to achieve by the time I was 50… and I decided I would get it done by the time I turned 30. I wrote about it in this blog post back then! https://www.maritacheng.com/blog/19-writing-my-memoirs.html

Well the thing I wanted to achieve was make a robot that would useful in the home. I achieved that with Jevaroo, a robotic arm that can do useful tasks around the home, that is mobile on a movable platform.

When I was in high school, I heard the quote, “most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years,” by Bill Gates.

I’m glad I got to achieve all my goals in the 10 years since YAOTY. I’m glad I designed, built, mass-produced and shipped our robot throughout Australia. Everything else was a bonus.

I’m glad I got to do so many things I never could of thought of or imagined - travelling to 50 countries around the world and giving 400+ speeches about AI and robotics in 14 of those countries.

I could have also never predicted that I would be awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). That was an honor I did not foresee and that floored me.

So just going in the direction that feels right and authentic to you can lead to so many (good) surprises you never could have imagined. But also, the scariest pitfalls you could have never imaged.

Which is why having the deep-rooted authentic feeling that you’re doing the right thing, and that you’re on the right path is so important.

I don’t know what the next decade will bring. But I plan to live it authentically, taking everything I learned with me, with all the love, joy, compassion and wonder that I can muster. Because life is short. Take all your chances. Life is either a daring adventure or it is noting at all.