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PROFILE
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Speaker Profile
Marita Cheng is a top technology keynote speaker, and the founder of global nonprofit Robogals, AI company Aipoly, and robotics company Aubot, impacting over 600,000 people around the world. Marita is an inspirational speaker who has given over 350 speeches since 2012 in 15 countries. She has won numerous awards including 2019 Member of the Order of Australia, 2018 Forbes World’s Top 50 Women in Tech, 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30, and 2012 Young Australian of the Year.
Marita Cheng AM, inducted as the youngest Member of the Order of Australia in 2019, named by Forbes as one of the World’s Top 50 Women In Tech 2018, Forbes 30 Under 30 2016, and 2012 Young Australian of the Year, is a technology entrepreneur and women in technology advocate. Marita Cheng is the founder and CEO of Aubot (formerly called 2Mar Robotics), which makes a telepresence robot, Teleport, for kids with cancer in hospital to attend school, people with a disability to attend work and to monitor and socialize with elderly people. Teleports have been sold to offices, museums, coworking spaces, for kids with cancer in hospitals and for security. As well as telepresence robots, Aubot does research and development in robotic arms, virtual reality and autonomous mapping and navigation.
Aubot has been recognized on a global scale through the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2016, and through being called “the coolest girl at CES 2014” by VentureBeat magazine. Marita has presented about Teleport at the M.A.P. International CEO Conference in the Philippines in 2016, MIT Technology Review EmTech Singapore in 2015, and the 2014 World Entrepreneurship Forum in Lyon France.
In 2015, Marita attended Singularity University’s 10-week flagship Graduate Studies Program, held at NASA Ames in Mountain View, funded by a $40,000 scholarship from Google. While there, she cofounded Aipoly. Aipoly’s first application recognizes objects in real time on a smartphone using convolutional neural networks and relays them to people who are visually impaired. Since launching at CES in January 2016, Aipoly is now available in 23 languages and has been downloaded over 500,000 times.
Marita was named the 2012 Young Australian of the Year for demonstrating vision and leadership well beyond her years as the Founder and Executive Director of Robogals Global. Noticing the low number of girls in her engineering classes at the University of Melbourne, Marita rounded up her fellow engineering peers and they went to schools to teach girls robotics, as a way to encourage girls into engineering. While on academic exchange at Imperial College London, Marita expanded the group to London and through innovation and sheer will, Marita then expanded Robogals throughout Australia, the UK, the USA and Japan. The group runs robotics workshops, career talks and various other community activities to introduce young women to engineering.
Robogals has now taught over 120,000 girls from 11 countries our robotics workshops across 32 chapters. Robogals has been internationally recognized though the Global Engineering Deans Council Diversity in Engineering Award (2014), Grace Hopper Celebration’s Anita Borg Change Agent Award (2011), and the International Youth Foundation’s YouthActionNet Fellowship (2011).
Marita regularly presents her work to diverse audiences, including appearing on Q&A on ABC beside two Nobel Laureates and the Chief Scientist of Australia (TV audience 600,000), and alongside Ashton Kutcher at Lenovo’s #TechMyWay (online audience 35,000). As well, she has presented overseas at Foxconn’s H.Spectrum by Yonglin Healthcare Startup Conference in Taiwan (2016), the 37th Kumon Japan Instructors Conference in Japan (2016), the World Engineering Education Forum in Dubai (2014), and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts’ World Conference in Hong Kong (2014).
Marita was born in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. She grew up in government housing with her brother and single-parent mother, who worked as a hotel room cleaner. She graduated from high school in 2006 in the top 0.2% of the nation, and that year was awarded Cairns Young Citizen of the Year. Marita speaks English, Cantonese and Japanese.
Marita has a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechatronics) / Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Melbourne. In her spare time, Marita enjoys reading, traveling and daydreaming.
Marita Cheng AM, inducted as the youngest Member of the Order of Australia in 2019, named by Forbes as one of the World’s Top 50 Women In Tech 2018, Forbes 30 Under 30 2016, and 2012 Young Australian of the Year, is a technology entrepreneur and women in technology advocate. Marita Cheng is the founder and CEO of Aubot (formerly called 2Mar Robotics), which makes a telepresence robot, Teleport, for kids with cancer in hospital to attend school, people with a disability to attend work and to monitor and socialize with elderly people. Teleports have been sold to offices, museums, coworking spaces, for kids with cancer in hospitals and for security. As well as telepresence robots, Aubot does research and development in robotic arms, virtual reality and autonomous mapping and navigation.
Aubot has been recognized on a global scale through the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2016, and through being called “the coolest girl at CES 2014” by VentureBeat magazine. Marita has presented about Teleport at the M.A.P. International CEO Conference in the Philippines in 2016, MIT Technology Review EmTech Singapore in 2015, and the 2014 World Entrepreneurship Forum in Lyon France.
In 2015, Marita attended Singularity University’s 10-week flagship Graduate Studies Program, held at NASA Ames in Mountain View, funded by a $40,000 scholarship from Google. While there, she cofounded Aipoly. Aipoly’s first application recognizes objects in real time on a smartphone using convolutional neural networks and relays them to people who are visually impaired. Since launching at CES in January 2016, Aipoly is now available in 23 languages and has been downloaded over 500,000 times.
Marita was named the 2012 Young Australian of the Year for demonstrating vision and leadership well beyond her years as the Founder and Executive Director of Robogals Global. Noticing the low number of girls in her engineering classes at the University of Melbourne, Marita rounded up her fellow engineering peers and they went to schools to teach girls robotics, as a way to encourage girls into engineering. While on academic exchange at Imperial College London, Marita expanded the group to London and through innovation and sheer will, Marita then expanded Robogals throughout Australia, the UK, the USA and Japan. The group runs robotics workshops, career talks and various other community activities to introduce young women to engineering.
Robogals has now taught over 120,000 girls from 11 countries our robotics workshops across 32 chapters. Robogals has been internationally recognized though the Global Engineering Deans Council Diversity in Engineering Award (2014), Grace Hopper Celebration’s Anita Borg Change Agent Award (2011), and the International Youth Foundation’s YouthActionNet Fellowship (2011).
Marita regularly presents her work to diverse audiences, including appearing on Q&A on ABC beside two Nobel Laureates and the Chief Scientist of Australia (TV audience 600,000), and alongside Ashton Kutcher at Lenovo’s #TechMyWay (online audience 35,000). As well, she has presented overseas at Foxconn’s H.Spectrum by Yonglin Healthcare Startup Conference in Taiwan (2016), the 37th Kumon Japan Instructors Conference in Japan (2016), the World Engineering Education Forum in Dubai (2014), and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts’ World Conference in Hong Kong (2014).
Marita was born in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. She grew up in government housing with her brother and single-parent mother, who worked as a hotel room cleaner. She graduated from high school in 2006 in the top 0.2% of the nation, and that year was awarded Cairns Young Citizen of the Year. Marita speaks English, Cantonese and Japanese.
Marita has a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechatronics) / Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of Melbourne. In her spare time, Marita enjoys reading, traveling and daydreaming.
Speaking Topics
HOW AI AND ROBOTICS ARE SHAPING SOCIETY — IN OUR JOBS, HOMES, AND COMMUNITIESAI is changing rapidly and disrupting how we work and interact with each other. Already many industries have adopted these tools to supercharge their operations. By integrating human creativity and insight with the processing power of machines, AI will lead to greater technological advances than we could have ever imagined.
In this fast-moving presentation, Marita Cheng will show that these technologies are not things to be feared, but tools to augment humans and our creative expression to find more answers.
MODERATED FIRESIDE CHAT WITH MARITA CHENGIn this interactive session, the moderator curates a customized experience by selecting topics of Marita’s expertise, providing a tailored and impactful encounter for the audience. Through anecdotes and facts, attendees gain valuable insights that can be directly applied to their respective industries.
BE DIFFERENT — FINDING YOUR OWN LEADERSHIP
How do you become an innovator and have a world-changing impact? Marita Cheng, named by Forbes as 2018 World’s Top 50 Women in Tech, succeeded by doing things differently. She believes her unique worldview came from starting global non-profit organisation Robogals when she was a 19-year-old university student, managing a team of 4000 volunteers. Robogals teaches girls robotics to get girls interested in engineering, and has taught over 120,000 girls robotics.
Marita tells her inspiring story about her struggles and ultimate success to start Robogals, AI company Aipoly, and robotics company Aubot—becoming a globally recognised technology entrepreneur in the process. Marita will show audiences how to put yourself into new situations to challenge yourself, work through discomfort, and ultimately achieve outcomes that you didn’t know existed.
In this fast-moving presentation, Marita Cheng will show that these technologies are not things to be feared, but tools to augment humans and our creative expression to find more answers.
MODERATED FIRESIDE CHAT WITH MARITA CHENGIn this interactive session, the moderator curates a customized experience by selecting topics of Marita’s expertise, providing a tailored and impactful encounter for the audience. Through anecdotes and facts, attendees gain valuable insights that can be directly applied to their respective industries.
BE DIFFERENT — FINDING YOUR OWN LEADERSHIP
How do you become an innovator and have a world-changing impact? Marita Cheng, named by Forbes as 2018 World’s Top 50 Women in Tech, succeeded by doing things differently. She believes her unique worldview came from starting global non-profit organisation Robogals when she was a 19-year-old university student, managing a team of 4000 volunteers. Robogals teaches girls robotics to get girls interested in engineering, and has taught over 120,000 girls robotics.
Marita tells her inspiring story about her struggles and ultimate success to start Robogals, AI company Aipoly, and robotics company Aubot—becoming a globally recognised technology entrepreneur in the process. Marita will show audiences how to put yourself into new situations to challenge yourself, work through discomfort, and ultimately achieve outcomes that you didn’t know existed.
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