I received an award in New York City from the American Australian Association:  the Next Generation Leadership Award.  As a result, they're planting a tree in my honour in New York City.  As part of my acceptance speech, the aubot team programmed a robot “Shazza” to have a conversation with me, bringing a bit of Australian humour to NYC.  Check it out!  (The conversation with Shazza begins at 3:30).

We launched Teleport Brain Control, so that people with a disability may attend school or work remotely via our telepresence robot Teleport, controlled by their brain.  Check out this video we made with two of our users, Anthony and Chris!

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.