Meet the Keynote Speakers at RoboBusiness 2024

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RoboBusiness 2024, the flagship event focused on the development of commercial robots and produced by The Robot Reportwill take place October 16-17 in Santa Clara, California. RoboBusiness will feature 60+ speakers, 100+ exhibitors and demos on the show floor, 10+ hours of dedicated networking time, the Pitchfire Robotics startup competition, and much more.

Thousands of robotics experts from around the world will gather at this event. In addition to fostering technological and robotics innovation, RoboBusiness 2024 focuses on investment and business topics related to running a robotics company.

For more information on sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, download the prospectus. Questions regarding sponsorship opportunities should be directed to Colleen Sepich at csepich(AT)wtwhmedia.com.

Here’s a sneak peek at the industry leaders who will be featured at the event. Click here to view the full RoboBusiness schedule and exhibit floor.

RoboBusiness 2024 Keynote Speech

Keynote Address: New Levels of Collaboration in Robotics

Rodney Brooks, Co-Founder and CTO of Robust AI
October 16, 9:30 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.

Collaborative robots have been around for over a decade and are widely adopted across many industries. Until now, however, the word “collaborative” hasn’t carried much weight; it’s basically just “Don’t hit people.”

We can do better. The future of automation depends on higher-level collaboration between humans and machines.

Rodney Brooks, Co-Founder and CTO of Robust.AI, will describe the imminent future where humans retain their own autonomy while collaborating with robots, each contributing to the same task, and around those same robots that can work on a task autonomously. Collaboration and autonomy can enhance and empower humans without compromising flexibility, reliability, or safety.

Brooks is a legend in the robotics industry, having previously co-founded iRobot and Rethink Robotics.

Driving the future of robotics innovation

Amit Goel, Head of Robotics and Edge AI Ecosystem at NVIDIA
John Bubnikovich, president of ABB Robotics USA
Eric Truebenbach, Managing Director of Teradyne Robotics Ventures
Joan-Wilhelm Schwarze, Senior Global Innovation Manager, Operations Automation Center of Excellence, DHL
Steve Crowe, Editor-in-Chief, The Robot Report (not shown)

October 16, 10:30 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.

This panel of experts will examine the current state of the robotics industry. They will discuss what is working well, what is not working well, and what needs to be improved to move the industry forward.

Panelists will also explore how collaborative efforts and technological advancements are driving the future of robotics innovation.

Creation of robotic foundation models

Sergey Levine, co-founder of Physical Intelligence | Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley
October 17: 10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

General-purpose baseline models, such as ChatGPT, have demonstrated how general-purpose models trained on diverse datasets can outperform narrowly tailored specialized models, even on tasks for which those specialized models are specifically designed. Can the same transformation happen in robotics?

In this presentation, Sergey Levine, one of the world’s leading minds in artificial intelligence, will explain how the basic models for end-to-end control of robotic systems can be built, how we can collect large and diverse datasets for these systems, and how they can enable new and exciting robotic capabilities.

Conversation with Claire Delaunay

Claire Delaunay, technical director of farm-ng
October 17: 11:00 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

Claire Delaunay, a renowned robotics expert, will share her thoughts on the current and future state of robotics and the various technologies that accompany it. She will also discuss her career path, the steps needed to create and scale startups and products, and the future of autonomous agriculture.

Delaunay is the CTO of farm-ng, where she leads the development of affordable and scalable robotics and AI solutions for more productive and sustainable agricultural practices.

Over the past two decades, Delaunay has made significant contributions to the fields of robotics and autonomous vehicles. Her roles include serving as vice president of engineering at NVIDIA, where she led the Isaac robotics initiative; co-founding Otto, which was acquired by Uber; and leading the robotics program at Google X.

She earned a master’s degree in computer engineering from EPSI in France, highlighting her commitment to advancing the field of robotics.

Closing remarks: Live demonstration of Endiatx’s robotic pill swallower

Torrey Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Endiatx
October 17: 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Endiatx is developing robotic pills to swallow for telemedicine. The PillBot is a virtual endoscope that allows doctors to observe the inside of the human body in real time.

Torrey Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Endiatx, will take us through the development of the robot, detail its benefits, and close RoboBusiness 2024 with a live demonstration of PillBot on stage.

Prior to launching Endiatx, Smith developed medical devices in the areas of endometrial ablation, atherectomy, therapeutic hypothermia, sleep apnea and vascular closure.

An aerospace engineer by training, he is interested in the advanced technology sector and is a proud mentor of the young founders of the Founder Institute. He is also the founding principal of the international art collective Sextant, and his work has been featured at the Smithsonian Institute.