Marita ChengAM (born 5 March 1989) is the founder of
Robogals. She was named the 2012
Young Australian of the Year.[3] She is the founder and current CEO of Aubot, a start-up robotics company.[4] She co-founded Aipoly, an app to assist blind people to recognise objects using their mobile phones.[5] She was named as one of the World's Top 50 women in Technology by Forbes in 2018[6] and was recognized on the
Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2016.[7] On 9 June 2019, Cheng was appointed a member of the
Order of Australia for significant service to science and technology, particularly to robotics.[8]
Early life
Cheng was raised by her mother, a single parent[9] who worked as a hotel room cleaner,[10] in a
housing commission apartment in Queensland, Australia.[9]
Career
In 2007, while at university, Cheng founded Nudge, a company which provided reminders by phone or
text message to help people manage their prescription drug schedules.[10] She won a prize for the best undergraduate business at the
University of Melbourne and then recruited friends to start designing workshops to teach girls about robotics.[5] This became
Robogals, which was founded in 2008[11] for the purpose of encouraging young women into careers in
STEM fields.[10] Cheng later graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering in mechatronics and a Bachelor of Computer Science.[5]
In 2011, Cheng was awarded a
Churchill Fellowship, which allowed her to visit the U.S., U.K., Germany and Jamaica to learn about international approaches to science education for young women.[12]
In 2011, Cheng was also awarded the
Anita Borg Institute's Change Agent
ABIE Award.[13][14]
In November 2011, Cheng was named Victorian Young Australian of the Year for 2012,[15] and went on to be named as Young Australian of the Year.[3] In that same year she was also a winner in the
Financial Review –
Westpac 100 Women of Influence awards' Young Leader category.[16]
Cheng visited China as part of the 40 Year Anniversary of Australia-China Diplomatic Relations, touring Guangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing, Tianjin and Beijing in 2012.[17]
In 2013 she established a start-up robotics company.[18]
In 2015, Cheng attended
Singularity University's flagship 10-week Graduate Studies Program, where she founded an app that uses AI to enable visually impaired people to recognize objects,[20] receiving
TechCrunch coverage during her time at the program.[21] The app won a
CES Best of Innovation Award in 2017.[22]
Cheng co-led an Australian delegation of 50 entrepreneurs, industry representatives and government envoys, to Israel alongside Assistant Innovation Minister
Wyatt Roy in 2015.[23]
She co-founded Aipoly, which launched in January 2016. Aipoly is an app to assist blind people to recognise objects using their mobile phones.[5]
Cheng returned to her robotics company, receiving a
Myer Fellowship,[24] and participated in the Advance Queensland Hot Desq program in 2017, relocating to
Brisbane, Australia for 6 months,[25] and the
Austrade San Francisco Landing Pad in 2018, which brought her to San Francisco.[26]
From 2012 to 2018, Cheng served on the board of the
Foundation for Young Australians.[27] Cheng helped decide on startup investments alongside
Eddie McGuire[28] as a board member of
RMIT University's New Enterprise Investment Fund (2014-2017),[29] and supported the Victorian startup ecosystem as a board member of the Victorian State Innovation Expert Panel (2016-2018).[30] She was also involved with the
Clinton Health Access Initiative as Technology Advisory Board Member (2016-2017).[31]
Public appearance
Cheng has given two TEDx talks,[32][33] and has been a featured speaker at MIT Technology Review Conference in Singapore,[34] IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA),[35] the World Entrepreneurship Forum in Lyon, the Global Summit of Women in Tokyo,[36] and the
Girl Scout National Convention in Utah.[37]
Cheng frequently attends events via her company's Teleport robot, using the device to meet
Prince Harry and
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in 2018,[44] to appear on a panel with Israel's Chief Scientist
Avi Hasson,[45][46] and to give a speech at Robogals' 10-year anniversary gala dinner.[47]
Awards and other accolades
2012 – Young Australian of the Year
2014 – RoboHub 25 Women in Robotics you need to know about[48]
2014 – Global Engineering Deans Council Diversity Award[49][50]
^
abcdBlackwell, Geoff; Hobday, Ruth (2017). 200 women: who will change the way you see the world. Richmond, Victoria: Echo in association with Blackwell&Ruth. p. 367.
ISBN9781760408183.
^
abKatherine Firkin (15 September 2010). "Mum's little helper - Extraordinary citizens recognized for bravery". Herald Sun. p. 010.
^
abcRobyn Rankin (29 December 2010). "Marita Cheng". The Cairns Eye. p. 12.
^Bridie Smith (15 November 2011). "Rush in leading role among society's mentors". The Age. p. 5. The Victorian young Australian of the year was 22-year-old engineering student Marita Cheng, who founded Robogals Global in 2008 to encourage women to consider a career in the sciences
^"Quite a Fellow". The Cairns Sun. 13 July 2011. p. 1.