SICE Luncheon Seminar
 

Date & Time: 12:00~13:30 (during lunch time), Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016
Venue: Room #203 (2F, DCC)
Chair: Yasushi Nakauchi, Univ. of Tsukuba, VP for SICE SI-Division

 
 

Sponsored by SICE (one of co-sponsors of IROS), SICE Luncheon Seminar provides the opportunity for academic and industry participants to exchange information and opinions, to build networks, and to foster entrepreneurship in robotics and systems. This luncheon is open to everybody. 50 free lunch boxes will be provides by first-come first-served basis.
 
 
 
"What it Means to Develop and Commercialize a Consumer Robot"
 

Dr. Erwin Prassler, runfun GmbH, Augsburg, Germany

 
 
 
"Towards Fostering Entrepreneurship and Commercialization of Robotics Technologies"
 

Dr. Raj Madhavan, Humanitarian Robotics Technologies, LLC & IEEE Future Directions Committee
 
Raj Madhavan is the Founder & CEO of Humanitarian Robotics Technologies, LLC and a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Robotics with AMMACHI Labs at Amrita University, Kerala, India. He has held appointments with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (March 2001-January 2010) as an R&D staff member based at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (March 2002-June 2013), and as an assistant and associate research scientist, and as a member of the Maryland Robotics Center with the University of Maryland, College Park (February 2010-December 2015).
 

He received a Ph.D. in Field Robotics from the University of Sydney and an ME (Research) in Systems Engineering from the Australian National University. Over the last 20 years, he has contributed to topics in field robotics, and systems and control theory. His current research interests lie in humanitarian robotics and automation – the application and tailoring of existing and emerging robotics and automation technologies from a variety of domains, including unmanned (aerial, ground) vehicles. He is particularly interested in the development of technologies and systems that are cost effective, reliable, efficient and geared towards improving the quality of lives of people in under-served and underdeveloped communities around the globe. He has authored over 185 papers in archival journals, conferences, and magazines including three books and four journal special issues. Within IEEE, Dr. Madhavan was the Founding Chair of the IEEE Washington/Northern Virginia Section Robotics Automation Society (2007- 2009; 2010 Best Chapter of the Year Award) and Sensors Council Chapters (2008-2009). He is a senior member of IEEE and is currently active within IEEE in the following roles: Chair, Autonomous Technologies and their Societal Impact, TAB Future Directions Committee Incubation Project; Chair, Economics of Machine Automation and Humanitarian Activities, IEEE-SA Global Initiative on the Design of Autonomous Systems; Vice Chair, Assessment & Best Practices, Humanitarian Activities Committee; Member, SIGHT Steering Committee; and Chair, Partnerships Subcommittee, SIGHT. Within the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, he served as the Founding Chair of the Technical Committee on Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking of Robotics and Automation Systems, TC-PEBRAS (2009-2011), Founding Chair of the Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge, HRATC (2014, 2015), Vice President of the Industrial Activities Board (2012-2015), Chair of the Standing Committee for Standards Activities (2010-2015), and since 2012 is the Founding Chair of the Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (RAS-SIGHT). He is the 2016 recipient of the IEEE RAS Distinguished Service Award for his "distinguished service and contributions to RAS industrial and humanitarian activities". See https://ammachilabs.org/faculty/raj/ for more details..