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Naomi Wu
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Naomi Wu
Naomi Wu, also known as Sexy Cyborg (simplified Chinese: 机械妖姬; traditional Chinese: 機械妖姬; pinyin: Jīxiè Yāojī; lit. 'Machinery Enchantress'), is a Chinese DIY maker and internet personality. As an advocate of women in STEM, transhumanism, open source hardware, and body modification, she attempts to challenge gender and tech stereotypes with a flamboyant public persona.
Wu's maker projects often center on wearable technology, including cyberpunk clothes and accessories, along with other projects. One of her early designs (2015) was 3D-printed "Wu Ying" (Chinese for "shadowless") platform heels, with a compartment that hides hacker tools including a keystroke recorder, a wireless router, and lock-picking tools. She explained to an interviewer that women's clothing often lacks pockets, but "chunky platform style shoes that many women in China wear to appear taller—have a lot of unused space."
In addition to her public work as a maker, Wu says she also works as a professional coder in Ruby on Rails, using a masculine pseudonym to protect her identity and preclude gender discrimination; she also reviews electronics. Wu once maintained active Reddit and Twitter accounts under the pen names SexyCyborg and RealSexyCyborg, respectively.
On International Women's Day 2017 she was listed as one of the 43 most influential women in 3D printing, a male-dominated field, by 3D Printer & 3D Printing News. She regards the usage of 3D printing to teach design principles and creativity in the Chinese classroom as the most exciting development of the technology, and more generally regards 3D printing as the next desktop publishing revolution. She regards "Chinese gadgets" as good as or better than foreign.
On November 5, 2017, Dale Dougherty, the CEO of Maker Media, publisher of Make magazine, doubted Wu's authenticity in a since deleted tweet: "I am questioning who she really is. Naomi is a persona, not a real person. She is several or many people." On November 6, 2017, Dougherty publicly apologized to Wu for "my recent tweets questioning your identity," saying they represented a failure to live up to the inclusivity Make magazine should value. Wu herself considers the matter settled. Wu appeared on the February/March 2018 cover of Make, which also included an article about her experiences with open source hardware in China. Wu was the first Chinese person ever to appear on the cover of Make.
In December 2023, Wu was named as the new maintainer of The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen, a print book that provides guidance for electronics industry business in Shenzhen and especially Huaqiangbei.
In 2018, a reporter from Vice spent three days with Wu in Shenzhen, exploring the city, meeting Wu's friends, photographing Wu's home, and describing in depth the local creative history and Wu's recent creation, the Sino:Bit, a single-board microcontroller for computer education in China, and the first Chinese open-source hardware product to be certified by the Open Source Hardware Association.
The article revealed details of her personal life, which drew criticism from Wu and from others because according to her agreement with Vice, such details should have been left out of the article, out of fear of retaliation by the Chinese government and also to protect her own private life. Vice refused to comply with the agreement and published the details.
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Naomi Wu
Naomi Wu, also known as Sexy Cyborg (simplified Chinese: 机械妖姬; traditional Chinese: 機械妖姬; pinyin: Jīxiè Yāojī; lit. 'Machinery Enchantress'), is a Chinese DIY maker and internet personality. As an advocate of women in STEM, transhumanism, open source hardware, and body modification, she attempts to challenge gender and tech stereotypes with a flamboyant public persona.
Wu's maker projects often center on wearable technology, including cyberpunk clothes and accessories, along with other projects. One of her early designs (2015) was 3D-printed "Wu Ying" (Chinese for "shadowless") platform heels, with a compartment that hides hacker tools including a keystroke recorder, a wireless router, and lock-picking tools. She explained to an interviewer that women's clothing often lacks pockets, but "chunky platform style shoes that many women in China wear to appear taller—have a lot of unused space."
In addition to her public work as a maker, Wu says she also works as a professional coder in Ruby on Rails, using a masculine pseudonym to protect her identity and preclude gender discrimination; she also reviews electronics. Wu once maintained active Reddit and Twitter accounts under the pen names SexyCyborg and RealSexyCyborg, respectively.
On International Women's Day 2017 she was listed as one of the 43 most influential women in 3D printing, a male-dominated field, by 3D Printer & 3D Printing News. She regards the usage of 3D printing to teach design principles and creativity in the Chinese classroom as the most exciting development of the technology, and more generally regards 3D printing as the next desktop publishing revolution. She regards "Chinese gadgets" as good as or better than foreign.
On November 5, 2017, Dale Dougherty, the CEO of Maker Media, publisher of Make magazine, doubted Wu's authenticity in a since deleted tweet: "I am questioning who she really is. Naomi is a persona, not a real person. She is several or many people." On November 6, 2017, Dougherty publicly apologized to Wu for "my recent tweets questioning your identity," saying they represented a failure to live up to the inclusivity Make magazine should value. Wu herself considers the matter settled. Wu appeared on the February/March 2018 cover of Make, which also included an article about her experiences with open source hardware in China. Wu was the first Chinese person ever to appear on the cover of Make.
In December 2023, Wu was named as the new maintainer of The Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzhen, a print book that provides guidance for electronics industry business in Shenzhen and especially Huaqiangbei.
In 2018, a reporter from Vice spent three days with Wu in Shenzhen, exploring the city, meeting Wu's friends, photographing Wu's home, and describing in depth the local creative history and Wu's recent creation, the Sino:Bit, a single-board microcontroller for computer education in China, and the first Chinese open-source hardware product to be certified by the Open Source Hardware Association.
The article revealed details of her personal life, which drew criticism from Wu and from others because according to her agreement with Vice, such details should have been left out of the article, out of fear of retaliation by the Chinese government and also to protect her own private life. Vice refused to comply with the agreement and published the details.
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