News Release

UC San Diego to Host Contextual Robotics Forum on October 10

San Diego, CA, September 30, 2014 -- The University of California, San Diego will host a robotics forum on October 10, 2014. The eight headlining speakers are world leaders in robotics disciplines that are relevant for the coming era of ubiquitous consumer robotics. Medicine, agriculture, environmental monitoring and disaster response are some of the areas of modern society that ubiquitous consumer robotics is poised to disrupt.

“We organized this forum to bring world-class robotics thought leaders together, before an audience of Southern California technologists and entrepreneurs with an interest in robotics,” said Albert P. Pisano, Dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. “We are dedicated to building and nurturing a robust robotics ecosystem here in San Diego. This means working to help build and sustain collaborations and partnerships among many different players in industry, academia, the military, entrepreneurial communities, and more generally, the region’s public and private sectors.”

The International Forum on Contextual Robotics Technologies is October 14, 2014.

Contextual Robotics Forum Speakers

Matt Grob
CTO, Qualcomm
Talk Title: Smartphone-powered Robots

Vijay Kumar
UPS Foundation Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Assistant Director for Robotics and Cyberphysical Systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Talk Title: Robot Swarms

Chris Anderson
Co-Founder and CEO, 3D Robotics
Talk Title: Airborne Big Data

Daniela Rus
Director, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), MIT
Talk Title: Printable Robots

Rodney Brooks
CTO, Rethink Robotics
Talk Title: The Three “M”s as Robotic Research Challenges: Mobility, Manipulations, and Messiness

Brad Nelson
Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, ETH-Zurich
Talk Title: MicroRobotics and NanoMedicine

Gill Pratt
Program Manager, DARPA

Dean Kamen
Founder, DEKA Research
Founder, FIRST competitions
Talk Title: Creating and Forming Future Technology Leaders

 

Forum Remarks

Pradeep K. Khosla
Chancellor, UC San Diego

Albert P. Pisano
Dean, Jacobs School of Engineering

Ramesh R. Rao
Director, Qualcomm Institute

 

Contextual Robotics Technologies

The term “contextual robotics technologies” is in the forum’s name to highlight the fact that “context” must be addressed if technologists and society at large are to realize the potential of ubiquitous consumer robotics for the public good. This entails developing robotics systems that are able to determine the context of a situation involving humans, determine a course of subsequent action and then accomplish that action. Contextual robotics systems will likely integrate mobile platforms empowered with sense, machine learning, adaptive control, communications and locomotion functions, and, on occasion, collaborative robots working toward a common goal.

Forum Details

Where
UC San Diego’s Atkinson Hall (Qualcomm Institute)

When
October 10, 2014 from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM

Who Should Attend?
The event is geared toward technologists and thought leaders from Southern California. The event is structured to provide ample time for networking with other attendees and with UC San Diego faculty involved in robotics-related research. Registration is required. Learn more at the forum website. 

Media Contacts

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Daniel Kane
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-534-3262
dbkane@ucsd.edu