'Mum told me to give back to the community': the young Australian creating robots for good

Grumpily washing the dishes as a 12-year-old in Cairns, Marita Cheng dreamt of building a robot that would do her chores for her. Two decades later, the former Young Australian of the Year is turning some of that dream into a reality – but the machines she’s designing help others, not herself.“I want to have a positive impact on the world,” says Cheng. “I like to create things that impact people in their everyday lives.

At university, Cheng set up a group aimed at encouraging women to take STEM courses, which has helped more than 100,000 students.

Let it be known she is only interested in talking about the nice robots, the ones that assist doctors with life-saving surgery and help the disabled, not the killer machines now being touted as the future of warfare. She describes the rewarding thrill of developing a technology that has an instant impact on people’s lives.

“I remember when I first started my company and was describing the projects I wanted to work on, the robots I wanted to build,” says Cheng. “A lot of people would tell me, ‘It makes sense you’re a woman,’ or ‘I don’t think a young man would start a robotics company so focused on helping people.’ I was always taken aback: I’ve had so many young men working on our robots over the past few years; men who want to have a positive impact on the world.

In these greyish, uncertain times, Cheng’s life has become a routine of Zoom meetings while remotely managing her team in Melbourne. While the development of new robots has slowed, she hopes the Jevaroo will gain traction when it is rolled out. Controlled by a smartphone, this robotic arm can move or grip objects, performing simple tasks that the able-bodied take for granted, such as taking a bottle of milk out of the fridge.

Cheng’s initial goal was to understand what ageing people and the staff who care for them might want from a robot, and how artificial intelligence could best bridge the widening gap between the number of older people in need of care and the number of professionals available to look after them, and which tasks a robot could fill.

How did she possibly squeeze everything in? “Cairns is small,” she laughs. “It takes less than 10 minutes to drive from one place to another. So whenever any event was on, I would attend. I tried to do the same when I got to Melbourne [she moved south to go to university when she was 17]. But by week two, I was so overwhelmed by how long it took to get anywhere and how much was on, that I cut back.

Oh great, now restaurants will do this and more kids without jobs on drugs down the street. What will teenagers do for a few bucks in the future? Deal ice?

What a remarkable lady. Her mother too. 👏

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