I use this to get the boys in my house to do homework.
Does it work?
No.
Hey Brett
-how’s it going? -Hi,
-You go first. -Okay.
My name is Marita Cheng.
I grew up in Cairns, in Far North Queensland.
And I studied mechatronics engineering and computer science,
which means that I learnt how to build robots.
And I started up a not-for-profit called Robogals
to get girls interested in robotics and STEM.
And then after university,
I started a robotics company
making robots to help people in their everyday lives.
We make robots for
people with limited upward mobility,
people with disabilities
and children who can’t go to school.
I think I might’ve heard about your program.
And what about you? Tell me about you.
My stuff is, , I’m a Kooma/Muruwari from western Queensland.
I’m in Brisbane
and I do virtual heritage,
so I create cultural heritage
3D immersive environments.
That sounds really interesting.
Well, we’re trying to build a time machine.
So, what drew you to your line of work?
Well, I’m a passionate Aboriginal fella.
So, I like my culture and my heritage, and
I think that you hear a lot about
connection to land
and the spirituality of it.
The fact that the land
sustains us is something that I want to honour.
I like games, so
I just tied them together
and thought of a way to combine them as my two passions
and as a result this is where this gamification of knowledge,
of cultural knowledge came from.
I see kids playing computer games
and they’re all frivolous games.
What if I was to make a serious game,
which is historically based
and then get them to play that game out
and in that playing
they find all this knowledge that they might not have known,
relevant to a local place.
Tell me about your robotics and schools and stuff like that.
So we worked on robotic arms
for people with limited upward mobility.
So, people can control their robot arm
to do things for them around the house
if they don’t have that mobility themselves,
so people with quadriplegia for example.
We’ve also created tele-presence robots,
so they’re basically
robots that allow you to be in multiple places simultaneously.
So, you can be in your office
and have a robot in Belgium or Japan.
Log in to the robot
from anywhere in the world
and you’re amplifying your presence.
You’re there were you physically are,
you’re also where your robot is,
and you can be productive
and have an immersive experience with people.
When I was growing up
I spent a lot of time with the Chinese community in Cairns.
I learnt Mandarin at Sunday school.
I did Chinese dancing with the girls.
We would like to perform at
local companies and local events
and to celebrate
famous people visiting Cairns or ministers visiting Cairns.
And I also did Chinese line-dancing.
My parents are from Hong Kong.
I think my mum,
she really encouraged me to learn a lot when I was growing up.
She worked as a hotel room cleaner.
She had a high school education.
She said I can’t teach you everything,
but I want you to learn as much as possible
and then you can take
what you’ve learnt from this area and bring it to your work.
What my mum has taught me
has played a part in my everyday life,
just like, keep working, hard keep doing your best
and help people.
And you are.
I guarantee you she’d be bloody proud.
And by the way my mum was a hotel cleaner on the Gold Coast.
Oh nice.
So, we’ve got a total connection.
And she also said,
she didn’t say, go to other people to learn it
she just wanted me to know more than everybody.
She was an Aboriginal girl who went to grade four.
She really wanted to learn but she just never had the opportunity.
I did a paper in Hong Kong.
At Hong Kong University.
Oh great.
Yeah,
I can fondly remember
crossing that harbour
in a ferry
and getting across to my meeting.
We were all staying across,
on one side where there’s all those flash hotels,
you know that street I’m talking about?
Yeah, yeah.
One of my friends is now there
and is in this area of virtual heritage.
My brother is actually doing his PhD in nnthropology, right now.
Oh yeah.
He’s particularly interested in
south-east China and my parents and their
immigration story from south-east China to Australia
and all the other immigrants that came from that area.
It’s always good know where you’re from.
I think that connection to place,
that identity to a place.
I reckon, and I can see
and probably hear from your words that it’s
your brother’s driving force as well.
A long journey has got to start with one small step.
Yep.
And then secondly,
you’re open to know everything you can find out
and then eventually you become the expert yourself.
The knowledge is there at a base
and you build it up
and then you build new knowledge from that
and that’s how we slowly advance.
If that wasn’t the case of the way things work,
we’d still be sitting around fires.