After standing up to the school bully, AZ finds herself suddenly entered into a robot-building competition. Join her and her new friends, they face hackers, crashes, and explosions and learn what it takes to build a robot against all the odds. As the adventure unfolds, youâll learn about leadership, teamwork, and so much more.Â
Sheâs Building a Robot is a fun, exciting, and inspiring book for girls who love STEM.Â
“I loved this book and couldnât stop reading it. It was interesting and super funny. Plus I learned a lot about robots.” Sofia Labonte, teenager.
“More women building robots? Absolutely!” Tess Lau PHD, CEO of Dustry Robotics.
âEvery time a girl writes her first line of code or connects the first two pieces of a robot, the world just gets a little bit better. Love your work AZ, 10 and Li.â Annie Parker, co-founder of Code Club Australia.Â
âThis book is an inspiration to the next-gen of women innovators all over the world.â Charlotte Yarkoni, Corporate Vice President Cloud & AI, Microsoft
“Yes! More women building robots and leading in tech. As a mom of a strong daughter, we love this book.” Carrie Palin Sandstad, Senior Vice President & CMO Splunk.
She’s Building A Robot is a novel aimed at girls and focused on technology.
AZ, the protagonist, is smart but has hidden her talents. She is pressured to enter a school robot building competition against the schoolâs rich boy. Her first robot goes wild leading her to a wonderful female mentor. She convinces a techy-girl and a quirky non-gender student to join her team. By working hard, solving puzzles and dealing with disasters like being hacked and a robot crash, they bring Ada to life.
The big finale is the three-day robot competition which includes rapping, solving riddles and a dangerous obstacle course. AZ is initially not confident leading or taking action but becomes tough and decisive in the end. Along the way, she builds friendships, character and skills for technology and leadership.
Here is me telling you all about it:
Any support or ideas for how we can provide more good role models for young girls around technology would be greatly appreciated.
I have so many people to thank for this book that I have made a list. (If for some stupid reason I have left you off, you know me well enough to know that it’s my carelessness not my lack of appreciation which is the cause… feel free )
Karen Liubinskas – my wonderful wife who has put up with over 14 months of this shenanigans. Plus she read it.
Lucy and Grace – for being an inspiration for me to write it and always supportive.
Sam my son – for being the first person under 20 to read it fully and give me good feedback.
Caty Germon – full proofreading and marketing support.
Kathey Carreiro – full proofread and lots of feedback, plus an amazing interview.
Tim Bull – for editing feedback and getting his kids to read the book.
Kate Miller from Publishizer – excellent support and the push that got me to do this.
Sofia Labonte – for being an early reader and giving me great feedback.
Jeanmarie Labonte – for asking Sophia to read it and getting her bookclub to read it too.
Karen Kaushansky – we met at SxSW when I started getting ideas on this and was very supportive. She also introduced me to some robotics groups.
Mum and dad – for being early backers and also encouraging me to try new things.
If you would like to interview Mick Liubinskas about women in tech and the book ‘She’s Building A Robot’ please email us at sbar@liubinskas.com
Bio
Mick Liubinskas is a loving dad of two girls and a boy and married to a wonderfully supportive (and patient) woman.
Mick is a high energy, technology entrepreneur, investor, author, speaker and industry leader.
He is a big believer that the world will be a happier, better place when we have fairness across gender, race, and culture. He has interviewed more than fifty women in robotics, technology, science, engineering, and maths to share their stories and inspire young girls.
He is passionate about what individuals can do day in day out to get the planet to sustainability and avoid catastrophic climate change. He doesnât like take away coffee cups.
He programmed his Commodore 64 at age 8, sold computer networks at age 17, raised capital at 22, and ran marketing globally for Kazaa at 26.
He has co-founded 4 technology startup companies, including three years in San Francisco. This has included evaluating 1,000âs of ideas, building first products, getting first customers, launching globally, raising capital, closing businesses, selling businesses, and all the emotional rollercoaster rides in between.
Mick is known as Mr Focus due to his strong drive for starting small and fast, doing fast testing on the road to success and avoiding the entrepreneurial distractions. He co-authored a workbook called Startup Focus which sold 5,000 copies.
For fun he loves surfing, playing football (the round ball variety), and singing bad karaoke.
If you would like to interview Mick Liubinskas about women in tech and the book ‘She’s Building A Robot’ please email us at mick@shesbuildingarobot.com
Great news, we’ve secured a publisher for the book – thank you all for your support.
The wonderful people at Mango Media are publishing the book and I’m excited to be working with them. They are the fastest growing independent publisher in the US.
Another one of my passion areas is climate change. I came across 1 million Women which is a global group focused on helping keep our environment livable.
It does make me think about whether you should be going fast as a 20 year old and slower when you’re older. But maybe that’s just because it’s what I did. I do wish I said no to some things.