Elite Networking Event Gathers MBZIRC 2020 Teams and Industry Representatives to Discuss Role of Competitions in Advancing Future Innovations
The first-ever Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) Symposium got under way in Abu Dhabi today with more than 400 international robotics and artificial intelligence experts in attendance, discussing the role of competitions in advancing future innovations.
The two-day symposium (26-27 February) at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center (ADNEC) offers the MBZIRC 2020 teams an opportunity to showcase their projects directly to industry representatives, in order to further increase interest and raise awareness, while facilitating opportunities for research collaborations.
A plenary discussion by the MBZIRC organizing committee, jury members and the international teams is scheduled to focus on current challenges in robotics development and recommendations for future robotics competitions. They also evaluated to what extent competitions such as MBZIRC 2020 help foster research and innovation robotics and artificial intelligence.
Dr. Oussama Khatib, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, spoke about ‘Robotic Divers for Oceanic Discovery’, while Dr. Paolo Dario, Professor of Biomedical Robotics and Director of The BioRobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA), shared his perspectives on ‘Frontiers of Biorobotics and Bionics Science and Engineering’
Dr. Tamim Asfour, Institute for Anthropomatics and Robotics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, focused on Engineering Humanoids with Motion Intelligence’, while Dr. Rainer Bischoff (Robotic Industry), Chair of the Department of Analytical Biochemistry, University of Groningen, offered his views on ‘From Challenges to Innovation in Robot-Based Automation’.
Dr. Jianwei Zhang, Professor and Head of Technical Aspects of Multimodal Systems (TAMS), Department of Informatics, University of Hamburg, spoke about ‘Cross-Modal Learning of Intelligent Robot Systems’. There were also special sessions on cooperative robotics and aerial robotics.
Leading robotics experts presenting at the symposium include Dr. Pedro Lima, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) – University of Lisbon; Dr. Marcello Ang, Associate Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering National University of Singapore; and Dr. Ronald Arkin (Robotic Colonies), Regents’ Professor, Director of Mobile Robot Laboratory, Georgia Tech.
Dr. Rachid Alami, Senior Scientist (Directeur de Recherche) at French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), will also speak at the symposium.
Participating teams and other robotics experts presented papers at the symposium that included an engaging, and informative lineup of invited talks, presentations, and workshops seeking to foster innovation and research excellence in robotics and artificial intelligence.
Clarence Michael
News Writer
26 February 2020
