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I've done what I've done

Published: Saturday, 26 January 2013

When I became Young Australian of the Year a year ago, I wanted to give as many speeches as I physically could, I wanted to contribute to the national curriculum, and I wanted to contribute to the national conversation in Australia by writing op-ed and opinion pieces.

With Robogals, I wanted all our programs from the previous year to run again and to be even more successful, I wanted Robogals to be financially sustainable and I wanted to hand over my role as the CEO onto a successor.

With university, I wanted to pass all my subjects.

Before being Young Australian of the Year, I'd done high school public speaking, high school public debating, and given only a few public speeches before.  I'd never contributed to the national curriculum before.  And I'd never written anything to be published in a major newspaper before.  In 2012, over 8 months I gave 134 speeches to 30,000 people, including 10,000 schoolgirls.  I contributed to the national curriculum.  And I submitted an op-ed for a major Australian newspaper.

With Robogals, all our programs ran again, we became financially sustainable and I handed on the role of CEO to a successor.

And I passed all my subjects at university.

A week before handing over the title of "Current Young Australian of the Year", was a week of pure contentment.

I think when you do things to the best of your ability, regardless of the result that you achieve, then you can look back on what you've done and be proud of yourself.

At the end of every project, no matter what the outcome, I like to say to myself, "I've done what I've done.  I haven't done what I haven't done.  And that's that."

About Me

Marita ChengForbes 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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