TC Sessions: Robotics 2018
May 11, 2018 — Berkeley
Speakers
Pieter Abbeel
Co-founder & Chief Scientist Covariant
Brandon Alexander
Co-Founder & CEO Iron Ox
Paul Birkmeyer
Co-Founder & CTO Dishcraft Robotics
Sébastien Boyer
Co-founder & CEO FarmWise
Adam Bry
Chief Executive Officer Skydio
Oliver Cameron
CEO Odyssey
Rob Coneybeer
Founder and Managing Director Shasta Ventures
Jeremy Fiance
Founder & Managing Partner The House Fund
Brian Gerkey
Director of Open Robotics Intrinsic
Mark Godwin
Co-Founder & CTO Boxbot
Ken Goldberg
Chief Scientist, Ambidextrous Robotics & Distinguished Chair, Engineering UC Berkeley College of Engineering
Ayanna Howard
Founder and CTO Zyrobotics
Kaijen Hsiao
Forrest Iandola
Sr. Staff Machine Learning Scientist Tesla
Homayoon Kazerooni
Professor of Mechanical Engineering University of California, Berkeley
Manish Kothari
(Former) President (SRI Ventures) and Vice President SRI International
Willy Pell
Director of New Technology Blue River Technology
Morgan Quigley
Chief Architect, Founder Open Robotics
Renata Quintini
Co-Founder and Managing Director Renegade Partners
Marc Raibert
Executive Director The AI Institute
Alex Rodrigues
CEO & Co-Founder Embark Trucks
Andy Rubin
Patrick Sobalvarro
President, CEO & Co-Founder Veo Robotics
Dan Steere
Co-Founder and CEO Abundant Robotics
Leila Takayama
Acting Associate Professor of Psychology University of California, Santa Cruz
Deepu Talla
VP and GM, Autonomous Machines NVIDIA
Chris Urmson
Co-founder & CEO Aurora
Melonee Wise
CTO Agility Robotics
Professor Pieter Abbeel is Director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab and Co-Director of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence (BAIR) Lab. Abbeel has founded two companies: Gradescope (AI to help instructors with grading homework and exams) and Covariant (AI for robotic automation of warehouses and factories). Abbeel is founding partner at AIX Ventures, a Venture Capital firm focused on AI start-ups. Abbeel is the host of The Robot Brains podcast, which explores what AI and Robotics can do today and where they are headed, through conversations with the world’s leading AI and Robotics pioneers. Abbeel has received many awards and honors, including the PECASE, NSF-CAREER, ONR-YIP, Darpa-YFA, TR35, IEEE Fellow, ACM Prize in Computing. His work is frequently featured in the press, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, Rolling Stone, Wired, Tech Review and TechCrunch.
Brandon Alexander is the CEO of Iron Ox, a company that is pioneering sustainable and precise growing techniques including AI, robotics and plant science, to reduce agriculture’s impact on global climate. He took his experience of growing up on his family farm and combined that with his career in robotics at Willow Garage and then Google to inspire him to found Iron Ox with the goal of solving global climate through food.
Paul is the CTO and co-founder of Dishcraft Robotics, a company creating novel robotic hardware and software to improve the quality of life and productivity of kitchen staff in commercial kitchens. Paul was drawn to robots from an early age because of the awe and wonder of watching your creation come to life in the real world and developed a deeper passion for the field when he recognized the empowerment that comes from creating something that can have real, tangible impact for good. In graduate school at UC Berkeley, Paul worked on how to design robots intelligently and wholistically such that the mechanisms, sensors, electronics, and software complement each other to create simple yet robust solutions to specific problems. This design mentality led to the technologies that launched Paul’s first company, Dash Robotics, where he was a co-founder and CTO. Started during his Ph.D. and derived from his research, Dash Robotics focused on making low-cost, build-it-yourself, bio-inspired legged robots available to kids to promote STEM engagement. While moonlighting to help build and grow Dash Robotics, Paul was also a research engineer at SRI Robotics where he contributed to projects including lightweight wearable robotics, autonomous racing motorcycles, and dynamically-walking humanoid robots. Paul also helped push novel manipulator and arm designs at iRobot that are being used in products today. Of all the projects Paul takes on, he tries to keep his focus on making systems that are cutting-edge, yet practical and towards something deployable in a larger market. After all, the real goal of robotics is to make something that can actually be helpful in the world, right? If you want to start a conversation with Paul, offer to talk about robots or technology over a nice cup of coffee.
Before co-founding FarmWise, Sebastien worked as a mathematician for IBM Research and a data scientist for Facebook. He holds a Master’s in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from MIT, where he studied machine learning and recent advances in computer vision. While at MIT, he won the Machine Learning for the Digital Economy competition. He is passionate about developing technologies that address long-term environmental sustainability problems. He was one of the winners of Innovators Under 35 Europe 2018 from MIT Technology Review and named to the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Oliver is co-founder and CEO of Odyssey. Odyssey is pioneering world models, the next frontier of artificial intelligence. Previously, Oliver built driverless cars at Cruise and Voyage.
Rob is a founder of Shasta Ventures and a 23-year veteran of the Silicon Valley venture capital industry. At Shasta Ventures, Rob focuses on investing in robotics, space, and the future of transportation. Early in his career, Rob served as an engineer in the Astro Space division of Martin Marietta, where he helped build the first A2100 satellite, a platform which is still in production today at Lockheed.
Rob spends his weekends car-racing and believes similar skills are needed to be a successful entrepreneur. As he explains, “Racing requires you to focus and make good decisions quickly.” Rob led Shasta’s Series A investment in Nest (acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in 2014). His current investments include Accion (ion engines for in-space propulsion), Fetch Robotics (robots for warehouse logistics), Starship Technologies (local delivery robots), and Turo (peer-to-peer carsharing company).
Rob earned an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Virginia. He also holds an MBA degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named a Palmer Scholar.
Jeremy Fiance is the Berkeley startup investor, dedicated to strengthening Berkeley’s startup community and equipping Berkeley founders with the tools needed to build great businesses. Currently, Fiance is managing partner at The House Fund. Jeremy was previously an investor at Keiretsu Forum, CrunchFund, and Dorm Room Fund SF. As an entrepreneur, Jeremy co-founded a health data science startup called Dropsense backed by Skydeck Berkeley and the Foundry @ CITRIS and actively advises several Berkeley startups. While a student at UC Berkeley, Jeremy proved the campus’ startup potential co-launching several initiatives, including Kairos Society Berkeley and Free Ventures, that have sparked over 50 startups.
Brian Gerkey is Director of Open Robotics at Intrinsic, where he’s helping to democratize access to robotics. Brian was previously co-founder and CEO at Open Robotics, and is a board member of the Open Source Robotics Foundation. He has also worked at Willow Garage, SRI, Stanford, and USC. Brian is a strong believer in, frequent contributor to, and constant beneficiary of open source technology.
Ken Goldberg teaches and supervises research in Robotics, Automation, and New Media. Ken holds dual degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania (1984) and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University (1990). He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1995 and is Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, with secondary appointments in EECS, the School of Information, Art Practice, and the UCSF Dept of Radiation Oncology. Ken and his co-authors have published over 200 peer-reviewed technical papers on algorithms for robotics, automation, and social information filtering, and he holds eight U.S. patents. He is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE), Co-Founder of the Berkeley Center for New Media, Co-Founder and CTO of Hybrid Wisdom Labs, Co-Founder of the Moxie Institute, and Founding Director of UC Berkeley’s Art, Technology, and Culture Lecture Series. Ken’s art installations, based on his research, have been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Whitney Biennial, the Berkeley Art Museum, the SF Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Pompidou Center, the Buenos Aires Biennial, and the ICC in Tokyo. Ken has co-written three award-winning Sundance documentary films, “The Tribe”, “Yelp”, and “Connected: An Autoblogography of Love, Death, and Technology.” He is represented by the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco. Ken was awarded the Presidential Faculty Fellowship by President Clinton in 1995, the National Science Foundation Faculty Fellowship in 1994, the Joseph Engelberger Robotics Award in 2000, and was elected IEEE Fellow in 2005.
Accomplished roboticist, entrepreneur and educator Ayanna Howard, PhD, became dean of The Ohio State University College of Engineering on March 1, 2021. Previously she was chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing, as well as founder and director of the Human-Automation Systems Lab. Her career spans higher education, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the private sector. Dr. Howard is the founder and president of the board of directors of Zyrobotics, a Georgia Tech spin-off company that develops mobile therapy and educational products for children with special needs. Zyrobotics products are based on Dr. Howard’s research. Among many accolades, Forbes named Dr. Howard to its America’s Top 50 Women In Tech list. In May 2021, the Association for Computing Machinery named her the ACM Athena Lecturer in recognition of fundamental contributions to the development of accessible human-robotic systems and artificial intelligence, along with forging new paths to broaden participation in computing. Dr. Howard earned her bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Brown University, her master’s degree and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, and her MBA from Claremont Graduate University.
Kaijen Hsiao is a co-founder and CTO of Mayfield Robotics, which makes Kuri, the adorable home robot that acts as a videographer for your family and adds a spark of life to your home (https://www.heykuri.com/). Mayfield began as a company in February of 2015, and started shipping Kuri robots to customers in December of 2017. Mayfield is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch, spun out of a robotics research division where Kaijen previously worked on mapping, navigation, and localization for both home and agricultural robots. Prior to joining Bosch, Kaijen was a robotics research scientist and area manager at Willow Garage, where she worked on robot grasping and manipulation, assistive robotics, and shared-autonomous teleoperation, and also led a team of software engineers developing a next-generation service robot. Kaijen has a Ph.D. from MIT, where she worked with Leslie Kaelbling and Tomas Lozano-Perez on grasping under uncertainty using tactile sensing and POMDP models for planning.
Forrest Iandola founded DeepScale, which was acquired by Tesla in 2019. He now serves as the Head of Perception at Anduril Industries.
Dr. Kazerooni is a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also serves as the director of the Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory. With more than 30 years of mechanical engineering experience and a doctorate degree from MIT, he is a leading expert in robotics, control sciences, exoskeletons, human-machine systems and augmentation, bioengineering, mechatronics design, intelligent assist devices, and power and propulsion. Prior to his more well-known research on lower extremity exoskeletons, Dr. Kazerooni led his team at Berkeley to successfully develop robotics systems that enhanced human upper extremity strength. The results of this work led to a new class of intelligent assist devices that are currently used by manual laborers in distribution centers and factories all over the world. These technologies are currently marketed worldwide by leading material handling corporations. Dr. Kazerooni’s later work focuses on the control of human-machine systems specific to lower human extremities. After developing BLEEX, ExoHiker, and ExoClimber–three super-light, load-carrying exoskeletons–his team at Berkeley created HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier). It is the first energetically-autonomous, orthotic, lower extremity exoskeleton that allows its user to carry 200-pound weights in various terrains for an extended period, without becoming physically overwhelmed. The technology was licensed to Lockheed Martin and now is used for a variety of military applications. Dr. Kazerooni has also developed lower-extremity technology to aid persons who have experienced a stroke, spinal cord injuries, or health conditions that obligate them to use a wheelchair. His medical exoskeleton, Ekso, has successfully allowed those who have been paralyzed to walk, stand, and speak face to face with peers in an upright position. In addition to his teaching work and research experience in a academia, Dr. Kazerooni is also an entrepreneur. In 2005, he founded Ekso Bionics (www.eksobionics.com), which went on to become a publicly-owned company in 2014 and now supplies medical exoskeleton (Ekso) to a great number of rehabilitation centers worldwide. He is the founder and chairperson of suitX, a VC, industry, and government funded company that provides accessible, affordable exoskeletons for the industrial, medical, and military markets (www.suitx.com). Dr. Kazerooni has won numerous awards including Discover Magazine’s Technological Innovation Award, the McKnight-Land Grant Professorship, and has been a recipient of the outstanding ASME Investigator Award. His research was recognized as the most innovative technology of the year in New York Times Magazine. He has served in a variety of leadership roles in the mechanical engineering community and is notably the editor of two journals: ASME Journal of Dynamics Systems and Control and IEEE Transaction on Mechatronics. A recognized authority on robotics, Dr. Kazerooni has published more than 200 articles to date, delivered over 130 plenary lectures internationally, and is the inventors of numerous patents. More information can be obtained in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homayoon_Kazerooni
Willy Pell started his career at Boeing where he was essentially tasked to making Google Earth for defense applications. He later moved to Silicon Valley and landed at a startup called 510 Systems which made the first Google Street View systems and in addition to autonomous cars. After Google acquired 510 Systems and rolled them into the Chauffeur project which eventually become Waymo, Willy became an early employee at Blue River Technology which applied computer vision and robotics to agriculture prior to John Deere’s Blue River acquisition in 2017. Willy carries an impressive software background and is passionate about building systems that create a positive impact on the world. Willy holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Computer Sciences from University of Colorado – Boulder.
Morgan Quigley is one of original authors of the Robot Operating System (ROS). He received a PhD in Computer Science in the AI Lab at Stanford University in 2012. His previous work includes contributions to the initial design and implementation of ROS and its ancestors back in ye olden days, and electronics and firmware for sensor-rich, high-performance robot legs and hands. His research interests include creating systems tools to simplify collaboration and enable greater use of open-source software and firmware in modern robotic systems. Morgan has been recognized by MIT Technology Review with the TR35 award.
Renata is a venture capitalist, futurist, and co-founder of Renegade Partners. Over the past 15 years, she has invested in founding teams transforming the trajectory of humanity through technology. Prior to launching Renegade with Roseanne Wincek in 2020, Renata specialized in early-stage deep technology investments as a Partner at Lux Capital. She previously served as General Partner at Felicis Ventures, where she worked closely with companies unlocking new markets and business models, including Dollar Shave Club ($1B acquisition by Unilever), Bonobos (acquired by Walmart), Planet (micro satellites), and Cruise Automation ($1B acquisition by GM). Before becoming a venture capitalist, Renata helped manage Stanford University’s endowment, investing in both private equity and venture capital funds. She earned her MBA and LL.M (Master of Law in Law, Science, and Technology) degrees from Stanford University, and her JD law degree from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. She is a CFA charterholder. Renata is also a three-time state champion black belt in karate, Bossa Nova guitar player, and Brazilian immigrant.
Marc Raibert is the executive director of The AI Institute, a new Hyundai-owned research lab devoted to advancing both the intelligence of robots and their physical skills. He is also the chairman of Boston Dynamics, which he founded in 1992. Prior to Boston Dynamics, Raibert was a professor of computer science at CMU and MIT, where he created the Leg Laboratory, a lab that helped establish the scientific basis for highly dynamic robots. Raibert is a Founding Fellow of AAAI, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, was named Pioneer in Robotics in 2022 by IEEE and received the Engelberger Award in Technology. Two of Raibert’s robots, the One-legged Hopper and BigDog, were inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame.
Embark is working to make the self-driving future a reality. While most of the spectacle has been around passenger vehicles, Embark is working to revolutionize $700 billion commercial trucking industry, the backbone of our economy. Commercial transport stands to reap untold benefits by deploying automated trucks – particularly during the “long haul” stretches. Alex studied Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo.
Andy Rubin is the founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Playground Global, a venture capital firm focused on tech startups working at the intersection of bits, atoms, and AI. Andy is also the founder and CEO of Essential Products, a new kind of company dedicated to creating delightful consumer experiences. Essential Phone and 360 Camera are the company’s first products.
Patrick Sobalvarro is the co-founder and CEO of Veo Robotics, a company that brings advanced computer vision, 3D sensing, and AI to industrial robots, allowing them to work side-by-side with humans in manufacturing processes. Patrick has more than twenty-five years of experience in computer vision, robotics, and industrial automation. Prior to founding Veo Robotics, Patrick was the first Entrepreneur in Residence at Siemens Venture Capital, focusing on the creation of the vision behind Veo. He also served as the VP of New Growth Platforms for Avery Dennison, building a new business line in RFID-based IoT products, was President of Rethink Robotics, creators of collaborative manufacturing robots, and founded and led the computer vision startup IntelliVid to its acquisition by Tyco International. Originally trained as a computer scientist, Patrick holds a Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dan is co-founder and CEO of Abundant Robotics, who are driving major leaps in productivity with robots in agriculture. After growing up in Louisiana and Texas, Dan was drawn to Silicon Valley where he discovered a love of creating and launching new products, starting as an Intel product manager. Dan soon gravitated to startups and has helped launch and grow successful companies in a variety of domains including semiconductors, enterprise software, mobile hardware, and robotics. He’s still on a mission to help build the next great technology company. Dan played varsity football and earned a bachelor’s degree concentrating in Computer Science from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. Dan is passionate about sports and an advocate of youth athletics
Leila Takayama is an acting associate professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies human-robot interaction. Prior to academia, she was a senior user experience researcher at GoogleX and was a research scientist and area manager for human-robot interaction at Willow Garage. She is a World Economic Forum Global Futures Council Member and Young Global Leader. In 2015, she was presented the IEEE Robotics & Automation Society Early Career Award. In 2012, she was named a TR35 winner and one of the 100 most creative people in business by Fast Company. (optional – academic) Professor Takayama completed her PhD in Communication at Stanford University in 2008, advised by Professor Clifford Nass. She also holds a PhD minor in Psychology from Stanford, a master’s degree in Communication from Stanford, and bachelor’s of arts degrees in Psychology and Cognitive Science from UC Berkeley (2003). During her graduate studies, she was a research assistant in the User Interface Research (UIR) group at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) More info: http://www.leilatakayama.org
Deepu Talla is vice president and general manager of Autonomous Machines at NVIDIA, where he is responsible for deploying AI technology in devices such as factory robots, commercial drones and video analytics. Previously, he was responsible for NVIDIA’s mobile business unit. Prior to joining NVIDIA in 2013, he worked at Texas Instruments for more than 10 years in various executive management and technical leadership roles. Talla holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electronics and communication engineering from Andhra University in India, a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University, and a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Chris Urmson is the co-founder and CEO of Aurora, the company delivering the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. Chris has been instrumental in instigating and advancing the development of self-driving vehicles and the industry for the last 15 years. Before founding Aurora, Chris helped start Google’s self-driving car program and served as CTO. Prior, Chris was a faculty member of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University where he worked with house-sized trucks, drove robots in the desert, and was the technical director of the DARPA Urban and Grand Challenge teams. Chris has authored more than 60 patents and 50 publications.He earned his Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and his BSc in computer engineering from the University of Manitoba in 1998.
Melonee Wise is the CTO of Agility Robotics. Melonee has a deep history in developing autonomous robots and advancing the robotics industry as we know it today. Prior to joining Agility in 2023, Melonee was the Vice President of Robotics Automation at Zebra Technologies. She was CEO of Fetch Robotics until its acquisition by Zebra Technologies in 2021. Melonee was the second employee at Willow Garage where she led a team of engineers developing next-generation robot hardware and software, including ROS, the PR2, and TurtleBot. Melonee serves as the Chair of the IFR Service Robot Group, as a robotics board member for A3, and on the MHI Roundtable Advisory Committee. Melonee has received many accolades and awards including the MIT Technology Review TR35, Silicon Valley Business Journal’s Women of Influence and 40 Under 40, Supply & Demand Chain Executive’s 2021 Supply Chain Woman of the Year, the 2022 Engelberger award, and as one of eight CEOs changing the way we work by Business Insider. Melonee received a BS in Mechanical Engineering and Physics Engineering and a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois.