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.
"We would have bought your company." "You just got lucky because it was the right time for that kind of thing." "All the elements in the industry were...
Knowledge junkies are people who love to learn and accrue knowldge. They’ve read all the books, registered to all the web communities, heard of all...
A month ago, I came up with a list of the things I wanted to consider during my YouthActionNet Fellowship retreat. In the 24 hours that it took me...
From July 2020 - March 2022, I worked really, really hard on achieving a big goal and having a huge impact on the world. By March 2022, when we’d...
Woody Allen once said that "eighty percent of success is showing up." To me, that means, you go to the meeting about the project. You're there...
Sometimes I like to take a day to think and reflect. So I get someone else to take away my computer, phone and any electronics in the house - so I...
Andy Warhol had an IQ of 86, Richard Branson has an IQ of 92, Muhammed Ali has an IQ of 78, and David Ogilvy had an IQ of 96. They are all below the...
The Australian Department of Home Affairs decided to celebrate the Australian of the Year awards with this short animated video of past award...
Today I asked myself, what do I want to have achieved in life by the time I’m 50? I wrote down all the major things I would be proud to have...
I used to think I was brilliant. That I was different. That I was special. But then I realised a lot of people feel that way about themselves. And...