Robotics is one of the most exciting and still one of the most male-dominated frontiers in technology. So when Women Love Tech recently became one of the first Australian media outlets invited inside the ECOVACS ROBOTICS headquarters in Suzhou, China, I made a beeline for Jengyi Deng.
Jengyi is the go-to-market strategy manager and product marketing manager for ULTRAMARINE, ECOVACS’ new robotic pool cleaner, which launched in Australia and New Zealand this month. She’s spent five years in the robotics industry, and her job sits at the intersection of engineering and everyday life: translating advanced technology into products that solve real problems for real people every day. (Read our story of how a messy backyard pool in Indiana sparked her passion for pool-cleaning robots on The Carousel.)
What I wanted to know from Jengyi was bigger picture: what it’s like to be a woman in robotics right now, and where is this technology taking all of us?
“It doesn’t come to our minds whether you’re male or female”
On being a woman in the midst of one of the world’s biggest emerging technologie, she says: “I’ve been asked this question many times — as a woman, how do you play your role in a company full of men? But the situation is different at ECOVACS.”
“We don’t see gender when it comes to work. It’s never ‘you’re a woman, so you should be responsible for this, and you’re a man, so you should be responsible for that.’ It just depends on what you like, what you’re good at, and where you see yourself in the future. It doesn’t come to our minds whether you’re male or female.”
And here, it needs to be said that a large group of women make up the Executive team including Karen Powell, Regional Director of ECOVACS ROBOTICS Australia and New Zealand, ANZ Comms Manager Bianca Bai and Group Marketing Director Wenxin Li seen below.
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For a company of nearly three decades’ standing, with more than 2,500 patents and robots in over 38 million households worldwide, it’s refreshing to hear, first-hand from Jengyi’s experience that there are so many opportunities for women in robotics.
What defines the job, she says, is relentless learning. “I spend a lot of time diving in with our R&D team to understand the fundamental technology, so I can come up with the most precise words to communicate our product’s value to customers. People say you stop studying after college — but in this kind of company, we’re always developing ourselves, learning more as the product grows.”
And that, she says, is exactly why women should be looking at robotics. “It’s the most exciting industry I’ve worked in. We go to exhibitions, we talk with all kinds of professionals, and it’s really fun to get views from every perspective, to see what kind of future people are hoping for, and to predict the life we’ll have in ten years. It’s like you can show people what a better life could look like.”
The Tesla moment for household robots
So what does that better life look like? Ask Jengyi where robotics is heading and she reaches for a motoring analogy.
“It’s like cars. Twenty years ago, you drove the car yourself. Ten years ago, cars got co-pilot features to help when you’re tired. Now you look at something like Tesla, and it can drive itself — all you need to do is sit in the car and let it take you where you want to go. The same thing will happen to robots.”
Today’s home robots, she points out, still ask things of us — emptying debris baskets, washing mopping pads, supervising the clean. Her vision is a generation of machines that ask nothing at all.
“One day, humans won’t need to pay any attention to the robot anymore.”
“One day, humans won’t need to pay any attention to the robot anymore. It will detect its environment by itself, plan its cleaning path and schedule by itself — depending on the weather, the climate — complete the task automatically, then clean and maintain itself. If anything goes wrong, it will send you an alert. That will be the only time you have to pay attention to it.”
Technology that leaves no one behind
With robots multiplying across our homes, I ask about robotic literacy. Between robot vacuums, mowers, window cleaners and pool cleaners — and AI companions on the horizon — do we all, particularly older generations who are often the ones with more money to pay for robots, have a lot of learning ahead of us?
“Technology should be for all. It shouldn’t leave anybody behind,” she says. “Our technology is growing really fast, and all these features can make it look difficult to own and use a robot. But the mission we’re aiming for is to simplify all those features into scenarios.”
She paints the picture: “You’re having a party tomorrow — you just choose the party cleaning scenario, and the robot decides what cleaning process to take, what suction power to use. In the future, whether you’re an older person or a younger person, familiar with technology or not, you’ll be able to use these robots with the least amount of time spent learning how.”
In other words: the burden of learning shifts from us to the machines. It’s a vision that chimes with what I saw elsewhere on the ECOVACS campus — including MAOTUAN’ER, an emotionally responsive AI companion pet designed with older and isolated people in mind. Tech for good, with humans kept firmly at the centre.
The robot she’s still waiting for
Jengyi practises what she preaches: she runs two robot vacuums at home and has installed another at her parents’ house. But when I ask what she’s most excited to see next from the robotics industry, her answer is instant — and every woman juggling a household will feel it in her bones.
“A laundry robot that hangs your clothes for you after they’re dried. That’s the chore I spend the most time on right now, and I really just don’t like doing it.”
And in Suzhou, a product team has already taken notes. Just take a look who is doing the laundry in the ECOVACS showroom in the sneak peek (above)at products being tested for the future. in the ECOVACS Showroom. And from Jengyi Deng’s track record, it seems the chores she hates have a habit of becoming robots.
The ECOVACS ULTRAMARINE P1 robotic pool cleaner is on sale now for $999 in Australia and NZ$1,299 in New Zealand.
Robyn Foyster travelled to Suzhou, China, as a guest of ECOVACS ROBOTICS.
