Returning to my hometown Cairns is always relaxing. Returning to Cairns in winter is a luxury - because the weather is lovely, and not cold at all. Centacare have a program where they are mentoring 20 people in launching their companies. They invited me to give a public lecture to share my experiences and advice in starting a company. To promote the lecture, the Cairns Post featured me on the cover of their Weekend newspaper magazine.


I attended the Global Summit of Women in Tokyo, Japan 11-13 May and gave a presentation about aubot, then spoke on a panel. It was live-translated into Japanese, French and Vietnamese. It was so awesome to share my experiences. After the 1.25 hour-long panel, I hung around and answered questions for another 1.25 hours.

It was so cool to meet so many women from around the world. I love Japan - the food, the people, the culture! Can’t wait until I go back there. The next Global Summit of Women is in Sydney in 2018! So get your tickets quickly!

SBS Viceland’s The Feed did a story with us where Anthony used his brain to control Teleport to see the top storey of his house for the first time, as well as took an excursion to the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.
Our brain control Teleport got some great press! It was covered by the Brisbane Times, New Atlas, Mashable, BBC and NowThis.
Brisbane Times: Robot queen from Cairns builds brain-controlled Teleport robot
New Atlas: Brain-controlled robot lets physically challenged see the world
Mashable: This robot may have just ruined your sick day
BBC Click: The telepresence bot operated by the mind
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).
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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