UC San Diego to Host Contextual Robotics Forum on October 10

By Tiffany Fox

San Diego, Calif., Oct. 1, 2014 — The University of California, San Diego will host a robotics forum on Oct. 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.

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

“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.”

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

Daniel Kane, (858) 534-3262, dbkane@ucsd.edu
Tiffany Fox, (858) 246-0353, tfox@ucsd.edu

Related Links

Contextual Robotics Technologies Forum Website