Forums

Organizers:
Drs. Raj Madhavan (VP, RAS Industrial Activities Board & University of Maryland, College Park, USA) and Torsten Kroger (Stanford University, USA and Founder of Reflexxes, Germany)

Where does Entrepreneurship fit in within Industry & Academia?

It is oft remarked that as a community, both within industry and academia, much needs to be done to foster innovation and technology transfer to kindle the spirit of entrepreneurship among budding engineers, scientists, and technologists. While the intention is noble, the execution of how to make this a reality has been dismal.

Organized by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s Industrial Activities Board (RAS-­‐IAB), this industry forum will focus on understanding what the expectations are that of the industry and academia when it comes to entrepreneurship and what immediate steps should be taken. A set of speakers from these communities will share their experiences on how they “made” it, what difficulties they faced along the way, and their suggestions on how to go about it in a practical sense. In addition, representatives from established robotics companies will speak about industrial needs with a focus on new technologies originating from research efforts. A roundtable discussion towards the end of the forum will provide ample opportunities for audience members and speakers to discuss this topic. A white paper will be published summarizing the results of the forum which is then expected to be released to the robotics and automation community to further refine ideas and to come up with a set of action items.

AGENDA

13:30 Welcome

13:40 François Conti, Force Dimension, Switzerland
14:00 Jeremy Fishel, Syntouch, USA
14:20 François Boucher, Kinova Robotics, Canada
14:40 Aaron Edsinger, Meka Robotics, USA

15:00 Coffee break

15:30 Plenary: Mario E. Munich, iRobot Corp., USA

16:00 Paulo Debenest, HiBot Corp., Japan
16:20 Andrija Feher, Synapticon GmbH, Germany
16:40 Akihiro Nishimura, ZMP, Inc., Japan

17:00 Coffee Break

17:20 Francesco Ferro, PAL Robotics, Spain
17:40 Andra Keay, Silicon Valley Robotics, USA

18:00 Roundtable Discussion

18:30 End