UK Government Science Minister and Startup CEOs Talk Robotics at UC San Diego
What will be the role of robotics in the workplace? How can startups in robotics become mass-market success stories? And what will the robotics industry look like in five, or even 50 years? Those are some of the topics up for discussion June 23 when academic, government and industry participants from the UK and California explore “The Future of Robotics and Autonomous Systems” on the University of California, San Diego campus.
Hosted by the Qualcomm Institute, the panel is part of a week-long visit to California by the United Kingdom’s Minister of State for Universities and Science, the Rt. Hon. David Willetts, MP. Willetts is leading a “digital trade mission” to California with a group of seven high-flying British robotics companies, most of them relatively recent startups or small-to medium-sized enterprises. All are eager to explore the status of the robotics industry in the United States, and areas of potential collaboration between the industry and university researchers…
The UK delegates will tour the Qualcomm Institute’s Machine Perception Lab – best known for its educational and humanoid robots…
Diego-san’s hardware was developed by leading robot manufacturers: the head by Hanson Robotics, and the body by Japan’s Kokoro Co. The project is led by University of California, San Diego full research scientist Javier Movellan. Movellan directs the Institute for Neural Computation's Machine Perception Laboratory, based in the UCSD division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). The Diego-san project is also a joint collaboration with the Early Play and Development Laboratory of professor Dan Messinger at the University of Miami, and with professor Emo Todorov's Movement Control Laboratory at the University of Washington.