Champion Award: Companies or individuals who are global champions for good robots and good robotics.
Louise Poubel | Software Engineering Supervisor, Ignition Technical Lead at Open Robotics Louise Poubel is a software engineering supervisor at Open Robotics. The foundation’s mission is to support the development, distribution, and adoption of open software and hardware for use in robotics research, education, and product development. She is building on her work with Gazebo, […]
Robohub President: Sabine Haeurt Founded: 2012 HQ: Switzerland Robohub is an online platform and non-profit that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from around the world, focused on connecting the robotics community to the public. It can be difficult for the public to find free, high-quality information about robotics. At […]
Mark Martin | Bay Area Regional Director for Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Development for California Community Colleges Mark Martin is the Bay Area Regional Director for Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Development for California Community Colleges, and is based at Laney College in Oakland, CA. His work is to build upon the region’s community college manufacturing programs to […]
NASA Intelligent Robotics Group Group Lead: Maria Bualat Deputy Group Lead: Matthew Deans Chief Roboticist: Terry Fong Founded: 1990 HQ: Moffett Field, CA Since 1990, the NASA Ames Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) has been developing robotics technology to reinvent planetary exploration and to create […]
Frank Tobe | Founding Editor of The Robot Report Frank Tobe is the Founding Editor and Publisher of The Robot Report which he launched in 2008 and sold to WTWH Media in 2017. He is also the co-founder of ROBO-Global, a robotics and automation exchange-traded fund (ETF), and developed a tracking index for the robotics […]
Rumman Chowdhury | CEO and Founder of Parity Rumman Chowdhury’s passion lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence and humanity. She is a pioneer in the field of applied algorithmic ethics, working with C-suite clients to create cutting-edge technical solutions for ethical, explainable and transparent AI since 2017. Formerly Global Lead for Responsible AI at […]
Alex Padilla | California Secretary of State Alex Padilla was sworn in as California Secretary of State on January 5, 2015. He is committed to modernizing the office, increasing voter registration and participation, and strengthening voting rights. Padilla’s parents emigrated from Mexico and raised their family in the working class community of Pacoima, California. His […]
Picknik Robotics Founders: Dave Coleman, Andy McEvoy, Mike Lautman, Rob Coleman, Mi Founded: 2015 HQ: Boulder, CO PickNik Robotics is a leading advocate of creating advanced robotic applications for startups and corporations all over the world. They lead the development of the open source MoveIt framework and its community, which has had a huge […]
Open Robotics Founders: Brian Gerkey, John Hsu, Morgan Quigley, Nate Koenig, Steffi Paepcke Founded: 2012 HQ: Mountain View, CA Open Robotics, along with the broader ROS community, have been working for over a decade to build free and open source tools and applications to advance the field of robotics. Working with our global community, we […]
Katherine Scott | Developer Advocate at Open Robotics Katherine Scott is a software engineer specializing in robotics and computer vision. Scott is currently the Developer Advocate at Open Robotics, the maintainers of ROS and Ignition Gazebo, and sits on the board of the Open Source Hardware Association. She was Cofounder and Software Lead at Tempo […]
SICK USA CEO: Tony Peet Founded: 1946 HQ: Minneapolis, MN Silicon Valley Robotics member since 2017, SICK has actively supported the California robotics industry. SICK works with robot OEM’s to tune SICK’s LiDAR technology to the emerging AMR market with the TiM family of small LiDAR’s ( and safety versions). SICK has been active in […]
Timnit Gebru | AI Ethics Researcher I am currently a research scientist at Google in the ethical AI team. Timnit Gebru’s recent dismissal from Google over what looks like research censorship, or at the very least a refusal to discuss issues, has sent shockwaves through the AI, ML, robotics and ethics communities. Timnit Gebru was […]
Willow Garage Founder: Scott Hassan Founded: 2006 HQ: Menlo Park, CA History shows that one single semiconductor company Fairchild created a large part of the wealth of Silicon Valley. This award goes to Willow Garage, one small group with big dreams that started the current robot revolution. Sadly, Willow Garage operated […]
Henrik Christensen | Director of Robotics, Distinguished Professor at UC San Diego and co-founder of ROBO-global & Robust.AI Henrik Christensen is currently Co-Founder of Robust.ai, one of the 2020 SVR Industry Awardees. As well as being the Qualcomm Chancellor’s Chair in Robot Systems and the Director of the Contextual Robotics Institute at the University of […]
Joy Buolamwini | Algorithmic Bias Researcher, Poet of Code, Founder of the Algorithmic Justice League Joy Buolamwini uses art and research to illuminate the social implications of artificial intelligence. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League to create a world with more equitable and accountable technology. Her TED Featured Talk on algorithmic bias has over 1 […]
Ayanna Howard | Chair of the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech “I believe that every engineer has a responsibility to make the world a better place. We are gifted with an amazing power to take people’s wishes and make them a reality.” – Dr. Howard (Video) Ayanna Howard is an American roboticist […]
Evan Ackerman | Contributing Editor at IEEE Spectrum Evan Ackerman has been writing about science, robots, and emerging technology for over 10 years. After co-founding his own robotics blog in 2007, he began contributing to IEEE Spectrum in 2011. In addition to Spectrum, Ackerman’s work has appeared in a variety of other websites and magazines […]
If robotics is the technology of the 21st century, rather than biotech, then we have some serious work to do. This week marks the ‘beginning of the end’ of the coronavirus pandemic as a vaccine is deployed in the US. The Wall St Journal recently profiled the incredible effort of Pfizer and BioNTech who pioneered […]