Forums

RAS Industry Forum - Where does Entrepreneurship fit in within Industry & Academia?

• Dr. Raj Madhavan (VP, RAS Industrial Activities Board & University of Maryland, College Park, USA)
• Dr. Torsten Kroeger (Stanford University, USA and Founder of Reflexxes, Germany)

Abstract. 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.

New Horizon of European Robotics and Cognitive Systems

Abstract. The forum will provide an update on the strategy for robotics and cognitive systems in Horizon 2020, the framework programme for research and innovation in Europe starting in 2014. It will present the status of the Roadmap for Research and Innovation drafted by the European Robotics Public Private Partnership (PPP) as well as the additional activities, including international cooperation. This session will also present an update on the current EU programme, introducing the new projects and opportunities to engage the community for advancing the field and for supporting the industry/academia cooperation via competitions, challenges, shared facilities, experiments, innovation-related activities (EuRoC, ECHORD++, EURATHLON, RoCKIn, and so forth).