Speakers
RoboBusiness Conference sessions are presented by the world's most renowned industry experts. Keynote presenters and speakers from RoboBusiness 2008 are listed below.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
| | Kevin Fahey Program Executive Officer, Ground Combat Systems Department of the Army |
As the Program Executive Officer (PEO), Ground Combat Systems (GCS), for the Department of the Army, Kevin Fahey is responsible for developing, acquiring, fielding and sustaining the Army Ground Combat Systems. Some of the systems include: the Abrams tank systems, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle systems, the Stryker Brigade Combat Team vehicles, Joint Lightweight Howitzer and Robotic Systems.
Previously, Kevin served as the Deputy PEO for Ammunition in Picatinny Arsenal, with approximately 200 different programs and an operating budget of $3B. The PEO-Ammo executed life-cycle acquisition management of conventional ammunition and manages the Department of Defense Executive Agent for all services conventional ammunition. He also served as Senior Technical Executive for Close Combat Armament Systems, U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ. Formally, Kevin worked as Deputy Project Manager and Chief of the Systems Engineering and International Division for the Crusader Program, as well as the Future Armored Resupply Vehicle (FARV) Program Development Project Officer and Chief of Systems Engineering, the U.S. delegate to the international 155mm Joint Ballistic Working Group and the M119 Development Project Officer. Kevin has been the recipient of the Superior Civilian Service Award and has been inducted into the Honorable Order of Saint Barbara. Kevin holds a BS in Industrial Engineering/Operations Research from the University of Massachusetts.
| | Colin Angle Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer iRobot Corporation |
Colin Angle’s leadership has transformed iRobot Corp. (Nasdaq: IRBT) from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off to an over $200 million business and a leader in the robot industry. One of the world’s leading authorities in mobile robots with almost 20 years experience, Angle is a true pioneer in the field. Under his guidance, iRobot has inspired a growing consumer robot industry by delivering the world’s first affordable home robot, the iRobot Roomba® Vacuuming Robot. Continuing with the growth, iRobot has introduced 6 additional robots including the iRobot Scooba, iRobot Dirt Dog, iRobot Verro and most recently the iRobot Looj and the iRobot Connector. Before co-founding iRobot in 1990, Angle was president of Artificial Creatures Inc., a robot design firm that ultimately become part of iRobot. Earlier in his career, Angle worked for three years at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where he first teamed with iRobot co-founders Rodney Brooks and Helen Greiner. Angle’s master thesis at MIT introduced “Genghis,” a six-legged autonomous walking robot that was later installed at the Smithsonian Air and Science Museum in Washington, D.C.
| | Hugh Durrant-Whyte Research Director Australian Centre for Field Robotics |
Hugh Durrant-Whyte received the B.Sc. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of London, U.K., in 1983, and the M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees, both in Systems Engineering, from the University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A., in 1985 and 1986, respectively. From 1987 to 1995, he was a Senior Lecturer in Engineering Science, the University of Oxford, U.K. and a Fellow of Oriel College Oxford. Since 1995 to he has been at the University of Sydney where he founded and is now research director of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR). His research work focuses on autonomous vehicle navigation and decentralised data fusion methods. His work in applications includes automation in cargo handling, mining, defence, and marine systems. He has published over 300 technical papers and has won numerous awards and prizes for his work. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences (ATSE), a Fellow of the IEEE, and an IEEE Robotics Society Distinguished Lecturer.
| | Takeo Kanade Professor of Computer Science and Robotics, and Director, Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center Carnegie Mellon University |
Takeo Kanade is the U. A. and Helen Whitaker University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics, and the Director of Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from Kyoto University, Japan, in 1974. After holding a faculty position in the Department of Information Science, Kyoto University, he joined Carnegie Mellon University in 1980, where he was the Director of the Robotics Institute from 1992 to 2001. He works in multiple areas of robotics: computer vision, multi-media, manipulators, autonomous mobile robots, and sensors. He has written more than 250 technical papers and reports in these areas, and holds more than 15 patents.
Dr. Kanade has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the ACM, a Founding Fellow of American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), and the former and founding editor of International Journal of Computer Vision. The awards he received include the C&C Award, the Okawa Prize, IEEE PAMI-TC A. Rosenfeld Life Time Achievement Award, Joseph Engelberger Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Pioneer Award, FIT Funai Accomplishment Award, Allen Newell Research Excellence Award, JARA Award, IEEE Computer Vision Longuet-Higgins Prize, and Marr Prize Award. Dr. Kanade has served on government, industry, and university advisory or consultant committees, including the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) of the National Research Council, NASA's Advanced Technology Advisory Committee, the PITAC Panel for Transforming Healthcare Panel, and the Advisory Board of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
| | Tandy Trower General Manager, Microsoft Robotics Group Microsoft |
Tandy Trower has a 24 year history with new products and technology initiatives at Microsoft bringing to market new products as diverse as Microsoft Flight Simulator to Microsoft Windows. In addition, as a strong proponent of the importance of design in human-computer interaction he has contributed to the company’s investment in improving its user interfaces, founding the company’s first usability labs and product design roles. He continues to investigate and drive strategic new technology directions for the company and incubating new projects.
| | Paolo Pirjanian President and Chief Executive Officer Evolution Robotics |
Paolo Pirjanian is President and CEO of the Evolution Robotics. Paolo was a lead engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working on robotics technologies for space exploration. Results of his work have been featured on CNN and other media. Paolo was also a faculty member in the Computer Science department of the University of Southern California, where he teaches graduate level artificial intelligence. He holds a Ph.D. from Aalborg University in Denmark. He recently won the IEEE and Automation "Early Career Award" for the best, upcoming roboticist of 2004.
GENERAL SESSION SPEAKERS
| | Sunil Agrawal Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director, Mechanical Systems Laboratory University of Delaware |
Sunil K. Agrawal received a Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 1990. He is currently the Director of Mechanical Systems Laboratory at the University of Delaware. He has published close to 200 journal and conference papers and 2 books in the areas of controlled mechanical systems, dynamic optimization, and robotics. Dr. Agrawal is a Fellow of the ASME and his other honors include a Presidential Faculty Fellowship from the White House in 1994, a Bessel Prize from Germany in 2003, and a Humboldt US Senior Scientist Award in 2007. He has served on editorial boards on numerous journals published by ASME and IEEE.
| | Omead Amidi Co-Founder, SkEyes Unlimited Research Faculty Member, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University |
Omead Amidi is a co-founder of SkEyes Unlimited and research faculty member at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute where his focus is Aerial Robotics technologies, including embedded control and sensing, image processing, and autonomous navigation. He joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon in 1994, to lead the Reconfigurable Vision Machine project, and since 1996 he has led the Autonomous Helicopter Laboratory at CMU. Amidi holds a PhD. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
| | David Askey Chief Business Development Officer Energid Technologies |
David Askey is responsible for key strategic initiatives, guidance, and market development at Energid Technologies. He also develops machine vision and 3-D reconstruction solutions and algorithms, with emphasis on applications that handle semi-structured and natural environments, harsh natural lighting, and tracking of biologic components. David leads several commercial and government machine vision projects. He has extensive industry experience in object tracking, image-based modeling, and video compression. David’s career includes positions in engineering management, technology strategy, and business strategy at leading technology and imaging companies both in the US and Europe. David holds an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from MIT.
| | Jean-Christophe Baillie CEO and Founder GOSTAI |
Jean-Christophe Baillie is the CEO and founder of GOSTAI, the company developing URBI, a user friendly, open and flexible robotic software platform. JCB started his career at Sony Computer Science Lab in 1999 where he developed AI vision algorithms for robotics. In 2002, he joined one of the top French technology institute (ENSTA) where he created the Cognitive Robotics Lab. URBI is born out of this lab, from a constant interaction with robotic industrials and experts in AI and Robotics. JCB holds a Ph.D in AI and is graduated from the French Ecole Polytechnique.
| | Joe Barron VP Product Line Management & Corporate Development Powercast |
Joe Barron has more than 23 years of experience in high tech, ranging from technology start-ups to multinational corporations. He was principal advisor at Socius Partners, a strategy consulting firm advising early stage technology companies on strategic planning and funding activities in a variety of industries ranging from life science to telecommunications. Prior to Socius, he was Vice President of Strategic Business Development for Marconi, PLC, where he was responsible for strategic partnerships, alliances and investments. Prior to Marconi he was Senior Director of Corporate Development at FORE Systems, a leading developer of data networking technology, which was acquired by Marconi in 1999. Previously, he held P&L responsibility as Product Line Manager in the Harris Corporation communications group, and was a founder and Engineering Manager at Teleprobe Systems, which was acquired by Harris Corporation.
Joe is a member of the advisory board of Blue Tree Allied Angels, LLC which invests in early stage companies. He has a B.S. in electrical engineering, has continued management studies at the Wharton School of Business, and holds several patents relating to Wharton School of Business, and holds several patents relating to communications technology.
| | Parag Batavia Director of Projects and Operations Applied Perception |
Parag Batavia, Director of Projects and Operations, Applied Perception (a Foster-Miller Company), leads multi-organization JAUS / SAE AS-4 ‘plugfest’ exercises as chair of the JAUS OPC / AS-4 ETG committee. These critical exercises validate implementations of proposed standards before they go to ballot. Parag has led the development and integration of over 15 JAUS-based systems for Applied Perception customers.
| | David Calderwood Vice President, Engineering Parata Systems |
David Calderwood is vice president of Engineering for Durham, N.C.-based Parata Systems, where he has evolved the company’s engineering capabilities from its infancy to support full development and improvement of existing and future products. Since joining the company in 2004 with just 10 employees, Calderwood has supervised the evolution of comprehensive engineering capabilities as the company has grown to a 500-employee enterprise and earned regional recognition as 2006 NCTA Growth Company of the Year. He created and manages reliability testing, software development, systems engineering, mechanical design, counting technology, manufacturing development, program management, supplier quality, quality assurance and Parata research groups.
| | Bob Christopher CEO UGOBE |
Bob Christopher, CEO of UGOBE, brings 20 years in technology and consumer management experience to the company. Bob is known for transforming visionary opportunities into highly successful business models with significant growth and profitability. Prior to joining UGOBE Bob served as CEO of Nextsport, an action sport scooter company that develops and sells technology enhanced scooter products into big box retailers and specialty sport shops. Earlier in his career, Bob helped launch the Voice over IP industry through the creation of ISPtel, an international clearinghouse connecting over 35 of the world’s largest phone companies.
| | John Culbertson Senior Robotics Engineer RE2 |
John Culbertson holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.A. in Digital Media and has worked with RE2 since 2004, participating in several ground vehicle programs. Especially of interest, John wrote much of the control software for the Phase II Gladiator Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle (TUGV) for the US Marine Corps under the Office of Naval Research (ONR), including the design of weapon control software used to demonstrate firing capabilities at the system's Final Demonstration. Currently Mr. Culbertson is serving as the technical lead on RE2's Dexterous Manipulator System (DMS) Phase II through ONR.
| | Anthony Diodato Chief Technical Officer CCS Robotics |
Anthony J Diodato co-founded and is president of Cypress Computers Systems,Inc. which has provided unique solutions to Homeland, Industrial, and Commercial security industries for 25 years. In addition to personally designing over 200 commercial products, Tony has led the company through its transition from entrepreneurial startup to a successful marketplace leader in the manufacturing of electronic security and access control devices such as enterprise-class alarm monitoring systems for automotive plants, access control systems, fuel and fleet management systems, synchronized time and attendance devices, protocol translators, wireless security products, and Cypress’ award winning SUPREX®Technology line of data communication devices. Tony also leads the robotics division of Cypress (CCSRobotics) whose first successful autonomous mobile robot is R. Frances Speciminder - a pathology lab courier.
| | Alexandra Dopplinger Industrial Segment Marketer, Power Architecture Technology Freescale Semiconductor |
Alexandra Dopplinger, P.Eng., is an Industrial Segment Marketer at Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. in Ottawa, Canada. She has been defining and introducing Power Architecture™ technology and other Freescale products for five years. Prior to that, she designed highly available telecom systems and holds one patent for a redundant LAN implementation. Her education is B.Eng. (Electrical) from Memorial University of Newfoundland.
| | James Drane Mechanical Engineer AnthroTronix |
James Drane is a mechanical engineer at AnthroTronix, Inc., a woman-owned human factors engineering company specializing in the development of advanced human-technology interface technologies. He has work experience in the areas of rehabilitation engineering, telerehabilitation, assistive technology, human-computer interaction, human-robot interaction, and human factors design.
| | Vincent Dupourque CEO Robosoft |
Vincent Dupourqué has a longstanding carrier as a researcher and project manager in robotics. His main background is overall design and automatic control of complex manipulator and mobile robots. After 10 years as a researcher at INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique), he became President and Technical Manager of ROBOSOFT in 1991. At ROBOSOFT he has been responsible for several industrial projects in the field of service robotics including industrialization of the ROBOSOFT proprietary mobile platforms and control technology and industrialization of the solutions for automatic transport of people, called robuCAB and robuRIDE. He was also central to the industrialization of the solutions for automatic cleaning of windows, called robuGLASS. The first ones have been developed for the pyramide du Louvre, the Georges Pompidou hospital and the Grand Stade de France (all in Paris). Vincent is author or co-author of more than 20 international papers and 2 books, and has managed several basic research projects in the field of automatic control of robots. He holds a PhD (Université Paris XII) and Docteur es-Sciences (Université de Franche- Comté) in Robotics.
| | Matthew Fisher President and CEO KumoTek Robotics |
Matthew Fisher is the President and CEO of KumoTek Robotics, a Richardson, Texas based robotics company whose clients include the U.S. Naval Academy, MIT, Dartmouth, and the U.S. Army. Matthew has helped to grow the KumoTek vision from being a small robot import and distribution company, to a multi-national design and manufacturing organization for both educational and service sector robots. An 11 year military veteran, he states that his goal is “to entertain the public with our fun and educational robot solutions, while saving the lives of the men and women who are out defending our freedom”. Matthew is fluent in Japanese and has consulted for several US and Japanese organizations, including the Japan External Trade Organization, The City of Osaka, and the U.S. Army. He is a graduate of the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond, Virginia.
| | Martin Foley Global Anti-Terrorism Manager Foster-Miller/QinetiQ North America |
Marty Foley joined the Foster-Miller, TALON Robot Team, as the Global Anti-Terrorism Manager in May 2007, after completing 25 years of service with the Massachusetts State Police. While with the State Police, he commanded the Fire and Explosion Investigation Section and the Bomb Squad and extensively trained and interacted, with the Hazardous Material Response Teams, and state and local SWAT teams. During his tenure, he oversaw dozens of incidents that included the use of robotics. While at Foster-Miller, Marty has extensively traveled the country speaking to innovative First Responders who are using robots for bomb scares, hazmat and SWAT responses. Marty will be joined by several of these innovative first responders to speak about the concepts of operations, tactics, techniques and procedures and the particular robotic needs for these three distinct activities.
| | Andrew Goldenberg President, Engineering Services Incorporated Professor, University of Toronto |
Andrew Goldenberg is the Founder and CEO of Engineering Services Inc. (ESI), a high-technology company involved in the development of prototype robotic-based automation and mechatronics products. Previously, he was President of Virtek Engineering Science, company involved in biotechnology automation. Since 1982 Andrew has been a Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, cross appointed in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. He is a former Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of ASME.
| | Allen Jones Operations Manager FirstLink |
As Operations Manager, Allen Jones manages the daily operations of FirstLink’s consulting practice, as well as working on particular technology and client projects. He is responsible for improving and institutionalizing the processes that support best practices for FirstLink’s accomplishments. Prior to joining FirstLink,in FirstLink’s previous contract with the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence (IEE), Allen was an Executive Vice President of an information technology consulting firm, MCCS, Inc. Allen has also provided subject matter expertise to Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency (DARPA) and its Advanced Logistics Program, an $ 80 million research effort aimed at developing the next generation of logistics systems. Allen was also the Program Manager for a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and Lead Project Officer for the Department of Defense. He holds a B.A. from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
| | Chetan Kapoor Associate Director, Robotics Research Group, University of Texas Austin Founder and President, Agile Planet |
Chetan Kapoor is the Associate Director of the Robotics Research Group at UT Austin and Founder and President of Agile Planet. His expertise is in the area of robotic systems integration, software architectures for intelligent machines, 3D graphics, and advanced motion control of robotic systems. Chetan is the chief architect and developer of a completely general software for manipulator control called OSCAR. Other software that he has developed is the widely used RoboWorks that is available commercially and RRG Kinematix which has over 1000 users worldwide. Chetan has over 30 conference and journal publications in robotics and software development and 3 copyrighted software. He has led various robotics projects for DOE, NASA, DARPA, and commercial clients. He holds a Doctorate from University of Texas Austin.
| | Dan Kara President Robotics Trends |
As President of Robotics Trends, an integrated media and research firm serving the burgeoning personal, service and mobile robotics markets, Dan Kara provides strategic direction for the company. Dan was the developer and chairman of the RoboNexus Conference and Exposition, RoboDevelopment Conference and Exposition and RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition. Dan also provides editorial oversight to RoboticsTrends.com, the leading online portal covering the intelligent, mobile robotics market. Prior to forming Robotics Trends, Dan was Co-founder and Executive Vice President of Intermedia Group, a leading integrated conference and media company focused on emerging information technology markets. He has also served as VP of Advanced Information Technology Research at Sentry Group, VP and Director of Research at Ullo International, and as Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer of Software Productivity Group. He holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Boston University.
| | Frank Klassner Associate Professor & Executive Director, Center of Excellence in Enterprise Technology Villanova University |
Frank Klassner is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Executive Director of the Center of Excellence in Enterprise Technology at Villanova University. Over the last seven years he has led national NSF projects to enhance computing curricula with robotics and has conducted national training seminars to help computer science faculty adapt robotics into their courses.
| | Marcus Kolb Director of Research and Development VideoRay LLC |
Marcus Kolb is the Director of Research and Development at VideoRay LLC, as well as an owner and founding member. He is responsible for the conception, development, implementation, and testing of all aspects of VideoRay remotely operated vehicle systems. A large aspect of this includes interfaces to external accessories and sensors. Recently Marcus spent seven weeks testing VideoRays in Antarctica with the National Science Foundation.
| | Rakesh (Teddy) Kumar Senior Technical Director, Vision and Robotics Laboratory Sanorff Corporation |
Rakesh “Teddy” Kumar is currently the Senior Technical Director of the Vision and Robotics Laboratory at Sarnoff Corporation. Prior to joining Sarnoff, he was employed at IBM. His technical interests are in the areas of computer vision, computer graphics, image processing and multimedia. At Sarnoff, he has been directing and performing commercial and government research and development projects in the areas of visual navigation, video surveillance and monitoring, video and 3D exploitation and analysis, object recognition, immersive tele-presence, simulation and training, 3D modeling, medical image analysis and multi-sensor registration. He has been one of the principal founders from Sarnoff for multiple spin-off and spin-in companies: VideoBrush, LifeClips and SSG (Security and Survelliance Group as part of Pyramid Vision Technologies). He has co-authored one book on Video Registration, more than 50 research publications and has received over 22 patents, with numerous others pending. Rakesh holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts.
| | David Landis Vice President, Education and Training The Technology Collaborative |
Dave Landis is V.P. for Education and Training at The Technology Collaborative where he manages Professional Development, Workforce Development,Continuing Education, and University Curriculum programs. Prior to his current employment, Dave held University appointments including Senior Scientist and Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University and Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of South Florida. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a member of the American Society for Engineering Education, and a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His industrial experience includes work at RCA’s Advanced Technology Laboratory and Honeywell’s Space Systems Group. Dave holds a Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University.
| | Jonas Lamis Founder and Executive Director, SciVestor Director of Partnerships, Singularity Institute |
Jonas Lamis is the founder and Executive Director of SciVestor, a research company focused on Singularity enabling technologies. He is also Director of Partnerships of the Singularity Institute where he focuses on building collaborative relationships between companies, institutions, foundations, and the Singularity Institute. Previously, Jonas had ten years of experience in corporate strategy, business development, and technology marketing with venture-backed enterprise software companies. He is also the founding editor of Architecture and Governance Magazine. Jonas received his MBA from The University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Systems Engineering and Optimization from The Georgia Institute of Technology.
| | Matt Linder CEO and Founder Valde Systems |
As a 17 year veteran of the electronics industry, Matt Linder brings a great deal of image processing, product development and engineering experience to Valde Systems. Prior to founding Valde Systems, Matt gained extensive experience in electronic product development and in new-product development and management at a variey of electronics companies, including at Lucent Technologies where he worked on all phases of the company's cutting-edge high-value equipment development, particularly high-speed DSPs. Matt is a graduate of Keene State College, where he studied Electronics Engineering, computer science, and business management.
| | Jim Osborn Industry Liaison Officer and Executive Director, Quality of Life Technology Center Carnegie Mellon University |
Jim "Oz" Osborn is Executive Director of the Medical Robotics Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon, as well as MERITS of Pittsburgh, a program to stimulate collaborations between clini¬cal and technological researchers. He is also the coordinator of University Life Science Initia¬tives for Carnegie Mellon. Previously, he founded a regional economic development group, the Pittsburgh Robotics Initiative. From 1985 through 1999, he held research and management positions in Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and led several multi-$M robotics R&D projects sponsored by the US DOE, NASA, and industry, including the first robot to explore an active volcano and robots for investigation of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island nuclear accidents. He has served as a board member of several professional society robotics divisions, chaired two technical conferences, and authored 25 papers and technical reports on robotic systems and applications.
| | Ray Renteria Director of Robotics Research SciVestor Corporation |
Ray Renteria has an 18 year history in commercializing advanced technologies in the robotics, graphics, gaming, web and enterprise software marketplaces. He was a key member of the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge finalist Monstermoto Team. His robotics forte falls within the computer vision area. He has developed several systems ranging from structured light to stereoscopic applications. Mr. Renteria is a veteran entrepreneur in the startup community having contributed to the inception and growing of several companies in the Austin, TX software community. Today he serves as Chief of Robotics Research for SciVestor, a research and advisory company. He also runs the popular robotics blog RobotCentral.com.
| | Anu Saha Academic Product Manager National Instruments |
Anu Saha is an Academic Product Manager at National Instruments, where one of his focuses is enhancing technology education through adoption of LabVIEW into curricula in the area of Controls, Mechatronics and Robotics. Saha started his career at NI in 2003 in the Engineering Leadership Program. After a branch assignment in South Korea, where he helped the branch adjust to its rapid growth, Saha returned to the NI headquarters in Austin, Texas, to support customers in the Applications Engineering department. He holds a bachelors of science in computer engineering and a bachelors of science in electrical engineering from University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
| | John Shearer CEO and Founder Powercast |
John Shearer, CEO and Founder of Powercast, is one of the primary inventors of the Powercast Wireless Power Platform and associated transmission algorithms. John also founded Information and Graphic Systems, has held executive management positions with several start-up and venture-backed companies, and has successfully commercialized early-stage research and development projects ranging from innovative image conversion systems and output devices to large-scale data collection and network optimization systems for companies in the electric power, gas, and telecommunications industries. ., John holds M.B.A. from the University of Colorado, and currently holds multiple patents, granted and pending, in the wireless power and RF power-harvesting fields.
| | Lloyd Spencer CEO Coroware |
Lloyd Spencer has over 23 years of experience in the computer and networking industries in engineering, product marketing, business development, and sales management. His expertise spans a spectrum of service provider industries and technologies, including distributed network computing and embedded systems development. Previously, Lloyd served as Vice President of Marketing and Sales at eQuest Technologies; Solutions Unit Manager at Microsoft; Assistant Vice President and Business Unit Manager at Newbridge Networks; and Product Line Manager at Sun Microsystems. Lloyd received his Bachelors degree from Cornell University with a major in Biology and Animal Science and with an emphasis in Immunogenetics.
| | Bruce Thompson Director of Engineering McKesson Automation Solutions |
Bruce Thompson is the Director of Engineering at McKesson Automation in Pittsburgh, PA, where he leads an engineering team in development and support of McKesson,s hardware products including the RobotRx, a centralized, robotic drug distribution system to automate storage and dispensing of bar coded, unit dose medications. Prior to joining McKesson, Bruce was Chief Technology Officer at RedZone Robotics Inc., developing robotic solutions to remediate nuclear and hazardous sites, including the Pioneer system created for work in the damaged Unit 4 reactor at Chernobyl. Bruce holds an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.
| | Mel Torrie CEO Autonomous Solutions |
Mel Torrie has been President and CEO of Autonomous Solutions, Inc (ASI) since founding the company in 2001. ASI is a spin-off of Utah State University’s Center for Self-Organizing and Intelligent Systems (CSOIS). Since then, the company has grown from a founding team of five to over 70 scientists and engineers. The companys growth is based on customers from diverse industries, and the company’s revenue is currently 70% commercial and 30% defense-related. Mr. Torrie has made ASI a recognized industry leading robotics company.
| | William Townsend CEO Barrett Technology |
Bill Townsend founded Barrett Technology in 1988, credited as maker of the world’s “most advanced robotic arm” in the special Millennium Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Barrett’s WAM arm and BarrettHand products operate in 15 countries around the globe today; and the WAM is the only arm approved by the FDA for force-controlled (haptic) surgery, having performed 100s of successful knee-implant surgeries across the US. Bill has coauthored many papers, been awarded 8 US patents, and won several professional awards including the Robotic Industries Association’s Joseph Engelberger Award in 2003 for pioneering the first haptic robot in the 1980s and best-paper-of-the-year award from UK-journal, Industrial Robot, in 2005. He holds a PhD in engineering from MIT.
| | Pablo Valdivia y Alvarado Senior Robotics Systems Engineer Energid Technologies |
As senior robotics system engineer at Energid Technologies, Pablo Valdivia y Alvarado focuses on novel manipulator and actuation technologies for medical and defense applications. His research interests include novel robotic platforms, biomechanics and controls. Pablo holds a Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.
| | Howard Wactlar Scientific Co-Director, Quality of Life Technology Center and Vice-Provost for Research Computing Carnegie Mellon University |
Howard Wactlar is Vice Provost for Research Computing, Associate Dean, and Alumni Research Professor in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. He was co-founder of the DoD funded Software Engineering Institute FFRDC and presently directs several basic research initiatives for defense and intelligence agencies. He was primary architect and remains project director of the Informedia Digital Video Library, one of the initial US Digital Library Initiative projects, and is the principal investigator for the NSF-funded Digital Human Memory Machine and CareMedia projects. The latter applies machine understanding of observed human behavior patterns to healthcare. He has been instrumental in establishing the US, European and Asian digital library research programs. He holds basic patents for processes related to automated video understanding, is widely published and a contributing editor to the scientific literature and a member of numerous US and foreign government advisory and review panels. His current research centers on multimedia information systems, machine learning and intelligent systems, and their application to improving health care.
| | Mike Wagner Commercialization Specialist, National Robotics Engineering Center Carnegie Mellon University |
Michael Wagner is a commercialization specialist at the National Robotics Engineering Center at Carnegie Mellon University. He serves as the software lead for the Gladiator Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle for the U.S. Marine Corps. His work focuses on building predictable, safe, and efficient software for the next generation of unmanned systems. From 1999 to 2005, Michael worked on vehicle control, mobility design, and human/machine interfaces for autonomous rovers developed for NASA technology programs. Michael also field-tested these rovers all over the world, working in remote destinations such as Antarctica and the Atacama Desert in Chile. Michael holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
| | Keenan Wyrobek Co-Director, Personal Robotics Program Willow Garage |
Keenan Wyrobek is an experienced researcher whose background includes a strong focus on engineering design. Keenan's robotic design expertise includes haptic, medical and personal robotic systems. Prior to joining Willow Garage as Co-Directors of the Personal Robotics Platform Program Keenan and Eric Berger spent two years at Stanford University developing PR1, the prototype for Willow Garage's PR2 personal robotics development platform (Keenan is currently on leave from the Phd program).