Asia Society Change Agent Award

As a result of me appearing via Teleport on stage at AICC’s event (access to AICC’s event post here), I was nominated for the Asia Society Asian Change Agent Award. So I flew to NYC on 27 October 2016 to attend the Awards Ceremony at the United Nations. Other awardees included Zhang Yimou, Soo-Man Lee, and Sanduk Ruit.

Yimou Zhang, Durreen Shahnaz, Benny YP Siahaan, Muzoon Almellehan, Karim Wasfi, Joey Alexander, Ahmad Sarmast, Marita Cheng, Soo-man Lee==
Asia Society Asia Game Changer Awards and Gala Dinner 2016==
United Nations, NYC==
October 27, 2016==
©Patrick McMullan==
Photo – Presley Ann/PMC==
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Zhang Yimou is a renowned and respected Chinese film director who directed Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Raise the Red Lantern, and the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies.
Soo-Man Lee is the founder of S.M. Entertainment, one of Korea’s most reputable entertainment companies.
Sanduk Ruit brought the gift of sight to those whom need it most.

This was the 3rd year for the awards. In previous years, Malala, Jack Ma, and Manny Pacquiao have been acknowledged.

The awards were presented by Charles Rockefeller, Princess Beatrice, Kevin Rudd, and other notable people.

?, Yimou Zhang, Durreen Shahnaz, Benny YP Siahaan, Muzoon Almellehan, Karim Wasfi, Joey Alexander, Ahmad Sarmast, Marita Cheng, Soo-man Lee, ?, Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice Elizabeth Mary of York, Henrietta Ford==
Asia Society Asia Game Changer Awards and Gala Dinner 2016==
United Nations, NYC==
October 27, 2016==
©Patrick McMullan==
Photo – Presley Ann/PMC==
==

Innovation in the Wild

On 12 October, 2Mar participated in Innovation in the Wild (IITW) at The Cluster. For this event, IITW partnered with the ITS World Congress to source its attendees.

We met with employees from Ericsson, Mercedes Benz, Cisco, Toyota, Bosch and Volvo. Lots of people expressed interest in having a Teleport in their office. We had a great time and can’t wait for the next one.

It’s a unique event where there are only 12 companies exhibiting, and groups of 3-4 people rotate every 5 minutes to meet each company. It’s great because it’s a very immersive experience. For two hours, you’re refining your pitch every 5 minutes. And unlike a trade show where you have busy periods and quiet periods, IITW is just full-on the entire time, which makes it really fun.

iits

We had a great looking booth with a tall robot next to a big screen showing Teleport in action. It looked awesome.  Above is a photo of Teleport while we were setting up – it’s small and at its lowest height so that it’s easy to transport around.  🙂

Optus Future Makers Program

Thank you Optus, for naming us Future Makers!  We took part in a 4-month program where we were mentored in social entrepreneurship and scaling our impact.  We had three 3-day sessions in Sydney, and one 3-day session in Melbourne during the 4-month period.

At the conclusion of the program, 50% of the 12 participants received funds to execute their projects.  2Mar’s funds will be used to continue our work, making robots to help people in their everyday lives, and to fund robots for kids with cancer in hospital so that they may remotely attend school.  Thank you Optus!

Meeting with Minister for Business and Innovation

I met with the Victorian Minister for Small Business, Innovation & Trade, Minister Philip Dalidakis MP and Minister Steve Herbert MP to share about Teleport.
They were particularly interested in the use cases around healthcare :
  • Getting specialists from Melbourne to Teleport into rural and regional hospitals in order to save time and money.
  • Teleport in metropolitan general practices for specialists in the larger local hospitals to consult with the GPs
  • Having robots all around the hospital for loved ones, family and friends to Teleport in, to visit patients in hospital – saving time, reducing stress and increasing visitation hours
  • Patients may also be discharged early and monitored at home from the hospital remotely via Teleport, saving the hospital money.

PM Malcolm Turnbull visits

As a flow on from our time at Engineers Australia Victoria’s office, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull decided to pay us a visit to see our robots.

He brought along his media entourage!

I told him about the robots being used for education – such as sick kids in hospital attending school, or getting high school maths and science teachers, based in metropolitan areas, teaching in rural and regional schools across Australia via Teleport.

We appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald together the next day on 6 June 2016.

Myer Innovation Fellowship

I was named a Myer Innovation Fellow to continue my work with telepresence robots for people with a disability. Two other people were also named as a MIF, they are Anna Rose and Andrew Robinson.

MIF

The Fellowship will enable me to dedicate even more resources towards bringing helpful robots to the world.

Thank you Myer and the Myer Foundation! More information available at this link.

Melbourne Famous: Teleport in The Age

Teleport appeared in The Age on 31 January 2016, exploring Melbourne, as an example of technology that will be everywhere in the next few years.  Exploring cities, museums and art galleries are all adventures Teleport is looking forward to taking.
Read the full article here!

TheAge spread

Virtual friends: Entrepreneur Marita Cheng with the robot likeness of fellow entrepreneur Alberto Rizzoli.

Table for two: In 10 years, we will all be doing it.

Qantas Tech Talk in the Sky

To celebrate QANTAS’ reintroduction of their Sydney to San Francisco flight, they decided to host tech talks in the sky, in collaboration with TEDxSydney.

QANTAS Ideas that Travel

On 17 February, I participated in QANTAS’ Tech Talks in the Sky by doing a demo where I controlled Teleport with my brain, while the plane was flying over the Pacific Ocean from Sydney to San Francisco!  This showcases the use case of someone with a disability being able to control Teleport from home, while being productive and participating in meetings at work.

Travelling internationally with Teleport on commercial flights has really forced our team to work hard at making Teleport as easy as possible to travel around with via plane, so after this trip,  we redesigned a few features to make Teleport more transportable.

Check out my speech below!

Deputy Premier and the Governor of Victoria

After 3 months, we concluded our industry placement experience for students in engineering. During that period, we had visits where we showcased our work. Our first major visit came right before Christmas on 15 December 2015 where we welcomed the Victorian Deputy Premier and Minister for Education, Minister Merlino.

And in the final week of the internship, on 24 February 2016, we welcomed the Governor of Victoria, with each team giving a presentation about the work they completed to welcome and inform our special guests.