Meet the ‘SexyCyborg’ Chinese Coder Who’s Inspiring Young Women to Pursue Tech

Naomi Wu,

While Wu studied English in school, she learned her tech skills on the Internet via WeChat groups, according to China Daily.

She also creates DIY tutorials on her YouTube channel, which has amassed more than 13,000 subscribers, and is determined to prove Shenzhen is the center of innovation.

“They don’t like my appearance, want to know why I look this way and want to explain why it bothers them. Fair enough, I look pretty weird,” Wu said of male Reddit users in an interview with Forbes. “For people actually in the maker and tech community, it’s a tough bit of ground to make a stand on. Yup, I look like a sex worker to you. So what? Are sex workers not welcome in the community?”

She also invents and tinkers in her spare time in her very own living room workshop. Some of her creations include an infinity LED skirt and a drone racing monocle, just to name a few.

Last year, the “SexyCyborg” created a pair of 3D printed secret compartment shoes designed to be able to smuggle penetration testing equipment past security.

Wu told the Daily Mail that the platforms, dubbed the “Wu Ying Shoes,” are to be worn with sexy clothing and is aimed to “distract the target with my upper body [so] they don’t see the real danger on my feet.”

Her latest project, the “Pi-Palette,” which uses a Raspberry Pi 3 in a 3D printed enclosure, is similar to the “Wu Ying Shoes.” But this time around, the “pentesting computer” is hidden inside a cosmetic case, noted All3DP.

Wu details how the device works in a YouTube video as well as in a Thingiverse post published on Saturday.

“As with all my projects, one of the primary goals was to make sure it was reproducible by people like myself with only basic technical skills,” SexyCyborg said on Imgur. “The only thing better than showing off what you can make, is showing that anyone can make it.”

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