Category Archives: Robotics

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Next Leap for Robots: Picking Out and Boxing Your Online Order Wall Street Journal (subscription) HBC -1.08% and Chinese online-retail giant JD.com Inc., JD 0.37% have recently begun testing robotic pickers in their distribution centers. Some robotics companies say their machines can move gadgets, toys and consumer products 50% faster than human ... and more »

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Next Leap for Robots: Picking Out and Boxing Your Online Order - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Six students from the small African country of Burundi went missing this week after participating in an international student robotics competition in Washington, D.C.

The team, consisting of two 17-year-old girls and four boys, aged 16 to 18, was reported missing after the competition's closing ceremony in Washington on Tuesday night. They were last seen in the area of the D.A.R. Constitution Hall near the White House.

Washington, D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department reported on Thursday that two of the teens had crossed the border safely into Canada. It's unclear how and when the students got there, what they were doing there, and where the other students are, according to police.

There is no indication of foul play in the disappearances, police added in the statement.

Canadian authorities could not confirm the entry of the two Burundian teens, telling ABC News, "It is not a practice of the Canada Border Services Agency to confirm and/or deny the entry of any one person to Canada."

The robotics competition grabbed headlines worldwide after an all-girl team from Afghanistan was twice denied U.S. visas to compete, but the White House later intervened in a last-minute act, granting that team and its chaperone a special parole to enter the country on a short-term basis.

The president of FIRST Global, the organization that runs the competition, made the initial call to the police about the missing team and has been assisting authorities, according to the group.

"Security of the students is of paramount importance to FIRST Global," they said in a statement, adding that students are "always to be under close supervision of their adult mentor and are advised not to leave the premises unaccompanied by the mentor."

The Burundian embassy in Washington did not answer multiple phone calls or respond to an email from ABC News.

Burundi is a small, landlocked country in Africa's Great Lakes region, bordering Rwanda, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The State Department issued a travel warning on June 23 for the country, noting, "The political situation in Burundi is tenuous, and there is sporadic violence throughout the country" after President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for and won a controversial third term in 2015.

In the aftermath of that election, state security forces have conducted numerous killings, disappearances, abductions, torture, rape, and arbitrary arrests, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), with attacks and killings by armed opposition groups as well. More than 325,000 Burundians have fled the country since 2015, according to HRW.

Burundi has a high refusal rate for business and tourism visa applications, with 61 percent of applicants denied -- an indication of U.S. authorities' fear that someone might overstay their visas and remain in the U.S. illegally.

ABC News's Ely Brown, Dee Carden, and Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.

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Burundi robotics team missing after competition in ...

Watch the first trailer for Steven Spielbergs adaptation of Ready PlayerOne

A student walked up to me at an event following Mondays TC Sessions: Robotics event in Cambridge. I have a question for you, he said, adding that he was a few months away from becoming a college senior. How do I launch a successful startup?

I explained that I might not be the person at the show best equipped to answer, but I offered some simple advice nonetheless: find a problem that needs solving, address a need that already exists, and dont go offering up solutions in search of problems.

Oh, and get a day job.

Learn the industry and the ins and outs of running a business from someone whos already in it. Work on your passion on the weekends and after work, while youre young and still have the energy to invest. Be bold and be excited, but temper that with pragmatism. Theres a reason that one of the most successful robotics companies at the event is the one that sells robotic vacuums. Its not universal advise, but its a model thats worked for countless startups before.

The student seemed unimpressed.

It wasnt difficult to come up with an answer. It was something Id been thinking about quite a bit in the lead up to the event. Moderating multiple panels gave me the opportunity to put the questions to a number of people far smarter and with far more direct industry experience. It was the one question I had on my index cards for multiple conversations: Are universities doing a good enough job preparing students to make the jump from the research lab to real-world commercial endeavors?

At MIT, were very excited about taking ideas that matter today and making them real, Daniela Rus, the head of MITs massive CSAIL interdisciplinary laboratory told me toward the close of the days first panel. In general, we are focused on long-term research. We want to invest in the future of computing and a future enabled by computing. But we are also very interested in how our ideas can matter today.

Universities and startups are very different beasts, built around very different models. Schools have their own pressures getting grants/sponsorships, publishing papers, applying for awards. But any researcher interviewed about their work by a member of the media will invariably get the same question: what are the commercial applications for this work? That topic isnt always at the top of students and professors minds when theyre doing the sort of long-term research to which Rus refers.

But there does seem to be an increasing interest in helping researchers make the transition to real-world product. Certainly theres a lot to be said for seeing the work on which youve spent months or years laboring have a direct impact on the lives of real people. Earlier this week, I spoke to ReWalk Robotics CEO Larry Jasinski about the companys relationship with Harvards Wyss Institute.

Turning research into product is one of the institutes key components, working to leverage [its] internal business development team, intellectual property experts, and entrepreneurs-in-residence to drive commercialization, throughindustrial partnershipsand the creation ofstartups, according to its mission statement.

In the case of ReWalk, the company gets to commercialize the research of Biodesign Lab head Conor Walsh, in exchange for help with FCC red tape, market considerations and royalties on sales. Theyre trying to develop the institute as something that has more of an application mindset, Jasinski told me. We are a bit of an experiment, as part of their attempted business model.

Its a commendable model, particularly in the case of the Restore soft exosuit the partnership has created to assist stroke patients. But that particular model doesnt address those students looking to transition out of the research lab and into the world of commercial robotics.

In a conversation with our own Ron Miller, Sami Atiya, the president of Robotics and Motion at industrial automation giant ABB, did a good job succinctly contrasting the two worlds. In academia, we focus on proving a hypothesis works, he explained. If you look at the industry, if we did that, we wouldnt be able to survive. We have to feed solutions to our customers that are highly repetitive, precise and accurate. The customer wants to have 99 percent uptime that is repeatable, at a cost that is affordable.

Expectations shift dramatically when research becomes product. No one knows this better than iRobot CEO Colin Angle. The companys first dozen years were a struggle to create a truly profitable robotics company. Its a decade lined with space rovers, baby dolls and movie licensing attempts before finally creating the Roomba in 2002, a product that has disrupted the vacuum industry and become the first and arguably still only mainstream home robot.

Angle laughingly explains that he didnt find success as a roboticist until he became a vacuum salesman. Its a funny statement, but the sentiment is important. The key to launching a successful robotics startup is focusing on the practical ways in which technology can positively augment our lives and, to some degree, getting lucky.

The idea that you launch with, youll either be very, very lucky or wrong, Angle told me during our interview. Youll need to stay open to learning how the rest of the world reacts to your idea and be flexible. Patience is also critically important, and its best not to do it alone. At iRobot, if we had been alone, instead of the three of us, it would have been a very different experience. We arranged that no one would be allowed to have crushing despair while another was having crushing despair.

Its true that the robots that are having the most immediate impact on our lives lack the sort of bleeding-edge excitement outsiders are hoping for from the field. Theyre the industrial pick-and-place arms from companies like ABB and the wheeled robots being used in Amazon warehouses. And the realities of running a business can be equally mundane, from the government regulation to payroll.

But universities do seem to be taking a more aggressive approach toward helping students make the transition. Carnegie Mellon has Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, which serves as a sort of on-campus incubator, helping to launch companies and, hopefully, fostering the startup community in and around Pittsburgh.

MIT, for its part, is being more progressive on that front, as well. During our interview, Rus described the schools technical entrepreneurship course, along with a new initiative. MIT has also started a big incubator called The Engine, which is extraordinarily exciting, she explained. It was just kicked off a few months ago, and there is already so much energy and buzz and so many companies that are taking advantage of it. We have a lot of opportunities for students. We want to train them to become entrepreneurs, just like we trained to become academic or industry researchers.

Theres no simple answer to the question, how do I launch a successful startup? Its long and frustrating and almost invariably paved with failures. But with a good idea, the right guidance and knowledge of the market, a student can turn a great bit of research into a successful product and if theyre lucky, it wont take 12 years to get there.

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Helping students transition from the laboratory to robotics startup ... - TechCrunch

Outside Bujumbura International Airport in the capital city of Burundi, six teenagers bound for Washington D.C. to compete in an international robotics competitions locked hands with parents and relatives to pray one last time before boarding their flight. In Kirundi, their native language, Coach Canesius Bindaba asked God to bless their journey to the United States.

I prayed that God may keep us safe on this trip, Bindaba said.

When Bindaba uttered those words, he said he had no idea that the teens likely with the help of their families had orchestrated a secret bid to stay behind and possibly seek asylum in the U.S. and Canada.The squad two girls and four boys who range in ages from 16 to 18 went missingon Tuesday from theFIRST Global Challenge robotics after it ended at DAR Constitution Hall, and their disappearance set off a panicked search for them at Trinity University in Washington, D.C., where they were staying in dorms.

By Thursday morning, D.C. police said two of the teens Don Charu Ingabire, 16, and Audrey Mwamikazi, 17 crossed in to Canada and were with friends or relatives. Police on Thursday said the other four Richard Irakoze, 18, Kevin Sabumukiza, 17, Nice Munezero, 17 and Aristide Irambona, 18 were not yet with relatives but were still safe.

[Two of six African teens who went missing from robotics competition are in Canada, D.C. police say]

The teens, who did not respond to Facebook messages, have left anger, disappointment and questions about their intentions for staying in the United States and Canada. Burundi has been seized by intermittent political violence for years that has driven hundreds of thousands of people out of the country.

I am disappointed that the students chose not to return home, even though I have a very clear understanding of the challenging circumstances they face in their nation, said FIRST Global President Joe Sestak, a former Congressman and Navy Admiral, in a statement. He said that the State Department and his organization, which brought in young people from 157 nations, had stringent review protocols for the visa process.

This year was the first for FIRST Global to host an international competition, and it featured an impressive array of competitors. But there were complications: Gambias team faced hurdles getting visas to come to the U.S., but eventually obtained them. An all-girls squad from Afghanistan was also initially denied visas, but after an international outcry, President Trump intervened so they could come to the U.S.

[For Afghan girls team, a trip to Washington was about more than the robotics]

If the teens plan to stay behind, it would be antithetical to the purpose of FIRST Global, which aims to help countries like Burundi build the ranks of skilled engineers by getting young people interested in engineering through its robotics competitions. Its founder, inventor Dean Kamen, hopes these robotics competitions can build the kind of networks and friendships that will help countries tackle global problems like water shortages and climate change together.

If we can get kids from around the world to deal with the same issues we could compete on the same team, Kamen said lastSunday, in remarks at the opening ceremony. You dont have to have self-inflicted wounds created by arbitrary differences and politics.

[At a global robotics competition, teens put aside grown-up conflicts to form unlikely alliances]

Bindaba had never coached a robotics team before and the students, who hailed from public and private schools around Bujumbura, had never built a robot. They adopted the motto Ugushaka Nugushobura a Kirundi proverb that means Where theres a will, theres a way.

They began in early April, putting in 3-4 hours after their high school classes, working out of a classroom at a technical institute owned by Audreys mother. FIRST Global connected the novices withRichard and Isabelle Marchand, a couple who have led robotics squads in Christiansburg, Va. The pair became virtual mentors, coaching them via Skype amid regular power outages.

Once the students landed in the United States, the Marchands would become their caretakers, ensuring that the teens, who were unfamiliar with American cuisine, were fed, Bindaba said. Reached at their home, Isabelle Marchand declined to comment, referring questions to Sestak.

From Friday to Tuesday, the teens spent hours at DAR Constitution Hall, arriving shortly after 7 a.m. to work on and practice with their robot. On Sunday evening, the teens strode onto the floor of DAR Constitution Hall for opening ceremonies, proudly waving the red, white and green Burundian flag, beaming and waving to the crowd. After, Bindaba said, Dons uncle took the team out to eat. Bindaba stayed behind.

Bindaba said he saw few signs that the teens had hatched a secret bid for possible asylum in the U.S. or Canada. They appeared nervous, Bindaba said, but he chalked that up to the competition and their new surroundings.

Before, I thought they were acting a bit strangely, Bindaba said, speaking from Bujumbura. I thought maybe it was their first time to be there, to see the big buildings that we dont have here.

Before closing ceremonies, Bindaba saw the teens onto the floor of the auditorium once more. They carried tiny flags and joined the throng of other competitors whistling and whooping, the ecstatic close to an exhilarating three-day competition. From the highest seats, Bindaba said, it was impossible to see the teens. He said he planned to decompress with the team over pizza and coke after the competition, a reward for the hard work that earned them a 73rd place finish out of about 160 teams. The following morning, the Marchands planned to give them a tour of the monuments. They had an interview scheduled with Voice of America.

Police said this is when at least some of the team members slipped away, taking advantage of the noise and the chaos surrounding the competitions end to disappear. At least one team member, Aristide, stayed behind. He helped Bindaba load the teams robot onto a school bus that would take them back to their dorms at Trinity University. Then, Aristide carried the robot to Bindabas room and told the coach that he was going to take a shower.

As Bindaba unloaded his bag, he noticed something peculiar: the other five team members had apparently secreted their name tags and room keys in to Bindabas bag. For the coach, it was a deeply unsettling discovery.

I knew something nasty was happening, Bindaba said. I felt it from within.

He then rushed to Aristides room: he was not there, and he had left behind a mess of pizza boxes and snacks. He checked the other rooms, too: the teens had still not returned.

I cannot really describe what I felt over there, but it was really scary for me, Bindaba said.

Bindaba also began sending panicked messages to the teens parents back in Burundi. But their replies made Bindaba suspicious: one childs uncle told the coachthat perhaps the children were nearby; anothers mother told him to cool down, that perhaps the team was out having fun.

I am not seeing the kids, Bindaba said. How can I cool down?

Around 5 a.m. Wednesday, about 12 hours before the teens were set to depart from Dulles Airport, Sestak called police to file a missing persons report. Their sober passport portraits went up on the D.C. police Twitter account, under the banner MISSING PERSONS.

Bindaba, who was unable to afford another plane ticket and had been assured the students were safe, headed home. The following morning, when Bindaba was still en route, police would announce two of the teens had made it to Canada.

The coach said he sympathizes with their desire to stay in the United States and Canada. But he said he wishes they understood what their skills and their potential could mean to the future of their own country. Burundi suffers from brain drain, with many of its brightest young people leaving to get education abroad and never returning. For me, they were some kind of hope for the future of this project in Burundi, Bindaba said. Its an opportunity for my entire country.

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He brought Burundi's first robotics team to the US to inspire his country. Then, the teens disappeared. - Washington Post

The missing teens are Aristide Irambona, 18 (clockwise from top left), Nice Munezero, 17, Audrey Mwamikazi, 17, Don Ingabire, 16, Richard Irakoze, 18, and Kevin Sabumukiza, 17. DC Metropolitan Police Department hide caption

The missing teens are Aristide Irambona, 18 (clockwise from top left), Nice Munezero, 17, Audrey Mwamikazi, 17, Don Ingabire, 16, Richard Irakoze, 18, and Kevin Sabumukiza, 17.

Washington, D.C., police say six teenagers from Burundi who competed in an international robotics competition were reported missing on Wednesday.

Two of the teens 16-year-old Don Ingabire and 17-year-old Audrey Mwamikazi were last seen leaving the U.S. and heading into Canada, the Metropolitan Police Department tells The Two-Way blog, adding that there is "no indication of foul play."

The six-person team participated in the first international high school robotics competition, called the First Global Challenge, earlier this week.

They were reportedly last seen on Tuesday, the final day of the competition.

The Metropolitan Police Department says it has no further information as of early Thursday afternoon about the whereabouts of Richard Irakoze, 18, Kevin Sabumukiza, 17, Nice Munezero, 17, and Aristide Irambona, 18, and adds that the case is under investigation.

The six teens four males and two females are shown smiling and posing with Burundi's flag on their team page on the competition's website. It says the teens were chosen from schools around the capital, Bujumbura, and are accompanied by a mentor.

According to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for the competition said "FIRST Global president Joe Sestak, a former Navy admiral and congressman, called police after receiving word from the team's mentor, Canesius Bindaba, that the teens had gone missing."

The Metropolitan Police provided NPR with six nearly identical police reports, which all state that Bindaba accompanied the teen to the robotics competition at Washington's DAR Constitution Hall. They each had one-year visas to the U.S. The mentor stated that each teen "went missing and he does not know where [they] could have went."

Authorities also says they canvassed the location where the event was held.

Burundi, which is in central Africa, has faced intense political unrest since 2015. "Hundreds of people have been killed, and many others tortured or forcibly disappeared," according to Human Rights Watch. "The country's once vibrant independent media and nongovernmental organizations have been decimated, and more than 400,000 people have fled the country."

The robotics competition previously attracted international headlines when Afghanistan's team of six teen girls were denied visas twice. As NPR's Laurel Wamsley reported, President Trump "intervened to find a way to permit the girls entry."

Originally posted here:

Burundi High School Robotics Team Reported Missing In DC - NPR

The DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. was transformed into a competitive robotics arena, when teenagers from 157 countries gathered for the FIRST Global Challenge on July 17. Liam James Doyle/NPR hide caption

The DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. was transformed into a competitive robotics arena, when teenagers from 157 countries gathered for the FIRST Global Challenge on July 17.

This week a highly-anticipated robotics competition for 15- to 18-year-olds from 157 countries ended the way it began with controversy.

On Wednesday, the team from the violence-torn east African country of Burundi went missing. Well before the competition even began, the teams from Gambia and Afghanistan made headlines after the U.S. State Department denied them visas. Eventually, they were allowed to compete.

The team from Honduras tend to their robot creation in preparation for competition. Liam James Doyle/NPR hide caption

The team from Honduras tend to their robot creation in preparation for competition.

The drama marred an otherwise upbeat event focused on kids and robots.

Every team arrived with a robot in tow, each built with the exact same components, but designed, engineered and programmed differently. The goal: to gobble up and sort blue and orange plastic balls representing clean water and contaminated water.

For two days, teenagers rich and poor, male and female competed on a level playing field.

Pictured top-left going clockwise, Brendan Alinquant of Ireland, Andrea Tern of Mexico, Helder Mendonca of Mozambique, Anis Eljorni of Libya, Sarah Lockyer of Australia and twins Rinat and Shir Hadad of Israel. Liam James Doyle/NPR hide caption

Pictured top-left going clockwise, Brendan Alinquant of Ireland, Andrea Tern of Mexico, Helder Mendonca of Mozambique, Anis Eljorni of Libya, Sarah Lockyer of Australia and twins Rinat and Shir Hadad of Israel.

But there were reminders that in some parts of the world there is no such thing as a level playing field. And no team understood that better than Team Hope, made up of Syrian refugees who've fled to Lebanon.

As Fadil Harabi, the team's mentor, pointed out, "more than 90 percent of Syrian refugees in Lebanon don't have legal status. They don't have passports."

Getting passports for the team, Harabi said, turned out to be a lot more complicated than building a robot.

Competing teams created robots with the goal to gobble up and sort blue and orange plastic balls, which represented clean water and contaminated water, respectively. Liam James Doyle/NPR hide caption

Competing teams created robots with the goal to gobble up and sort blue and orange plastic balls, which represented clean water and contaminated water, respectively.

Team Hope's robot didn't do very well, but every time the Syrian kids competed, they attracted a crowd that would clap and chant, "Team Hope, Team Hope!"

For Colleen Johnson 18, a member of the all-girl U.S. team, that's what this event was all about.

"Everybody here is working together, loaning each other batteries, tools, helping each other fix programming issues to lift each other up," she said.

Still, the technology gap between poor and rich nations was evident. For team Honduras though, that gap is due to the lack of opportunity, not just the lack of resources.

Competitors from Team Hope, center in black, test the performance of their robot in a designated practice area. The unique team was comprised of Syrian refugees who had fled to Lebanon. Liam James Doyle/NPR hide caption

Competitors from Team Hope, center in black, test the performance of their robot in a designated practice area. The unique team was comprised of Syrian refugees who had fled to Lebanon.

"Honduras is a country where there aren't many opportunities," explained the team's leader, 17-year-old Daniel Marquez.

Marquez and his teammates all came from a tiny village, a seven-hour drive and world away from Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital. Not a single member of the team had ever handled a remote control, let alone built a robot.

"But the world today demands that we understand technology," said Melissa Lemus, one of two girls on the Honduran team.

As the competition entered its third and final day, I checked in on Afghanistan's all-girl team. It seemed they had grown weary of the media frenzy around them.

Speaking through a translator, 15-year-old Lida Azizi said she was disappointed that her teammates' skills, and the robot they built, had gotten a lot less attention than the team's visa problems, which nearly kept them out of the competition.

The Afghan team's consolation prize: a medal for "courageous achievement," and knowing that they placed much higher than countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

Top honors went to Team Europe, Poland and Armenia.

The all-girls team of competitors from Afghanistan worked together to build their robot. The team faced adversity when the U.S. State Department initially denied them visas. Liam James Doyle/NPR hide caption

The all-girls team of competitors from Afghanistan worked together to build their robot. The team faced adversity when the U.S. State Department initially denied them visas.

The awards ceremony and closing ceremony felt like one big party, not so much a goodbye. It was a celebration with a hopeful message delivered by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim:

"You are the first generation in human history that can end extreme poverty in the world," Kim said. "And from what I saw of these robots, I know you can do it."

His message was not lost: Intelligence and talent with a moral vision have no race, nationality, religion or gender.

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What Really Happened At That Robotics Competition You've Heard So Much About - NPR

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Robotics and STEM education nonprofit moves headquarters to ... - Tribune-Review

Posted July 22, 2017 11:48:14

The big controversy leading up to the FIRST Global international robotics competition in Washington was whether a team of girls from Afghanistan would be able to participate, after their initial visa applications were denied.

As it turned out, the Afghan girls got into the country, after direct intervention from President Donald Trump, and competed without incident.

Instead, it was a team from Burundi that created an immigration-related uproar after it disappeared in what appeared to be an effort to avoid returning to their home country.

The disappearance of the six Burundi teenagers, four boys and two girls, from the competition is casting a spotlight on the visa process used to admit competitors.

Police in Washington DC are continuing to investigate the disappearance, which was reported on July 19, the day after the robotics competition ended.

Two of the six teens were seen crossing the border into Canada, police said.

Event organisers believe the youths may have planned their disappearance, and members of the Burundi-American community say there is little doubt they are planning to seek asylum, either in the United States or in Canada.

The robotics team's coach, Canesius Bindaba, told The Washington Post that he had heard rumours the teens might be planning to stay in the United States, which he hoped were not true.

"I just tried to build some kind of trust, hoping they were just rumours," he said.

Police reports indicate that the Burundians were in the country on travel visas valid for one year, although immigration law experts said Customs and Border Patrol agents would have limited the stay to a certain number of days when the team arrived.

William Cocks, spokesman for the State Department's Division of Consular Affairs, said the State Department screens visa applications, and one of its goals is to ensure that visa applicants are not trying to use a tourist visa to permanently immigrate into the US.

He declined to discuss the Burundi teenagers' specific situation.

A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection also declined comment.

The competition, designed to encourage youths to pursue careers in math and science, attracted teams of teenagers from more than 150 nations.

AP

Topics: community-and-society, immigration, science-and-technology, robots-and-artificial-intelligence, united-states

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Six teenagers disappear after international robotics competition in Washington - ABC Online

In and interview earlier this week at theTechCrunch Robotics Sessionheld on the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA, Sami Atiya, president of ABBs Robotics and Motion division, said he believes bringing robots into the manufacturing process actually adds jobs instead of killing them.

ABB certainly has some data points with more than 300,000 industrial robots installed worldwide, and Atiya claims that conventional wisdom is wrong when it comes to robots and jobs. Automation is going to drive more productivity and also jobs, he said. He went on to say that countries with the highest ratios of humans to industrial robots in production environments also have the lowest rates of manufacturing unemployment.

If you look at pure data and statistics, he said, in the countries that have the highest rates of robots per employees, which is Japan and Germany, they have about 300 robots per 10,000 employees, and they have the least unemploymentin the manufacturing sector.

He also claimed that there have been 100,000 industrial robots installed in the U.S. in the last five years, which has resulted in 270,000 additional jobs, more than two jobs for every robot. (ABB cites the International Federation of Robotics, World Bank, OECD and BLS as sources for these numbers.)

There has been, of course, a lot of speculation that as companies increase the use of robots to automate jobs, there will be corresponding job loss. In May, an article in the LA Times appeared to back up this assertion, citing a study by PwC, whichclaimed that 38 percent of all U.S. jobs could be lost to automation by the early 2030s. Thats a frightening prospect to many people and to policy makers who would have to deal with the fallout if that were to happen.

An article on CNN Money from last March, smack dab in the middle of the contentious presidential campaign, cited numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that 5 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2000. While there has been much debate for the reason, the article claims robots and machines have been a big contributing factor in replacing workers. Its worth noting that there are still more than 12 million jobs in the sector in spite of decades of steady decline.

ABB Robot arm. Photo: Veanne Cao, TechCrunch

Atiya said one of the reasons companies are moving to robots is they simply cant compete without them. If you look at this from a macro-[economic] perspective, skilled labor is becoming [more scarce], and its not a question [whether] you want to do it or not. You have to do it to stay competitive as a nation, and also as a company, he said.

Atiya used the standard argument for these types of historical economic transitions, comparing the increasing use of robotics with the rise of the steam engine, electricity and industrialization. The common belief during all of these key changes was that they would kill jobs, but in the end they created more jobs because of productivity increases, he said (and history backs him up).

Obviously we have concerns and fears about new technologies, but ultimately we humans, Im very convinced, will find ways to cope with them, and use them as tools as opposed to substituting our own work, he said.

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Sami Atiya from ABB says industrial robots will add jobs, not take ... - TechCrunch

The robotics industry is at an important crossroads. As machines play an increasingly important role in our work and home lives, a lot of difficult questions will need to be addressed, from proposed AI regulation, to automation-related job loss, to the level of control and autonomy we bestow upon our robotic counterparts.

Earlier this week, we were honored to host many of the greatest minds in the field on the MIT campus the birthplace of much of this robotic innovation. Industry and university leaders joined us at TC Sessions: Robotics, including Amazon Robotics Tye Brady, Disney Robotics Martin Buehler, MIT CSAIL director Daniela Rus, ABBs Sami Atiyaand all three iRobot cofounders, Colin Angle, Helen Grenier and Rodney Brooks.

Its impossible to cover all of the topics in such a broad and groundbreaking field over the course of a single-day event, but we did our best, from drones and Disney to household robotics and launching a commercially viable startup in the space. It was an amazing day full of great talks and incredible robot demos.

Thanks to everyone who helped us fill Kresge Auditorium on Monday, and for those who couldnt make it out to experience the robotics breakthroughs first-hand, heres the next best thing.

Daniela Rus, the head of MITs interdisciplinary CSAIL lab, demoed four of her teams most fascinating robotics projects. Rus stated that her passion is working toward a world where robots are pervasive in our lives, and the devices on-hand were a good demonstration of that breadth. In one demo, a robot is created on a 3D printer, hydraulics and all. In another, an origami robot folds itself into shape and goes to work powered by a magnet, while another, created from sausage casings, is designed to be ingested to help retrieve dangerous swallowed objects like batteries.

Investors Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital, Helen Zelman Boniske of Lemnos and Manish Kothari of SRI Ventures talk with Connie Loizos about how robotics startups can grab and keep their attention. The panel also discusses the robotics hype cycle and whetherweve reached a tipping point for VC interest in the category.

Sami Atiya from ABB spoke to Ron Miller from TechCrunch about the future of industrial robotics, including how many jobs they could realistically take, how data could make them smarter and the actual potential for a hacked robot.

Robots may be replacing humans in the workplace here and there, but its more likely that youll be working alongside a robot than training it to do your job. Devin Coldeweytalked about the challenges and opportunities of collaborative robots withClara Vu (VEO), Jerome Dubois (6 River Systems) and Holly Yanco (UMass Lowell).

As artificial intelligence and robots grow in sophistication, so too do the ethical conundrums associated with them. How can we design these systems so that they reflect the best of humanity and not our greatest flaws? Devin explored these questions withDavid Barrett (Olin), David Edelman (MIT) and Dr. Brian Pierce (DARPA).

Elaine Chen of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship moderated a discussion about robotics startups featuring Helen Greiner of CyPhy Works and Andy Wheeler of GV. The group discussed finding venture capital and the ways in which the space has evolved over the last couple of decades.

Amazons Tye Brady expressed his views on the state of the robotics industry and how to build the ideal robotic system. By using Star Wars R2-D2 as a comparison, he talked about how companies can build robots. TechCrunchs managing editor Matt Burns then pressed him on Amazons ultimate plan to replace the human workers in its warehouses with robots, which he ultimately claimed is not Amazons goal.

Greg Kumparak spoke to Deepu Talla (Nvidia, VP and General Manager of Intelligent Machines), Heather Ames (Neurala, co-founder and COO) and Brian Gerkey (Open Source Robotics Foundation, CEO) about building the robot brain. They chatted on the state of AI, on how more standardization might be needed moving forward to help robots from different companies communicate and where students and other new entrants into the field should focus to make the biggest impact. Heather Ames also announced a partnership with Motorola Solutions that will allow police to tap Neuralas machine learning algorithms to let their body cameras find missing children amongst crowds of people.

Buddy Michini of Airware, Andreas Raptopoulos of Matternet and Jan Stumpf of Intel spoke to hardware editor Brian Heater about the state of the industrial drone industry. The conversation covered the rapid rise of drones as a robotics platform both in research and among consumers, and the ways in which unmanned aircraft are becoming an increasingly popular tool for surveying and data collection. The conversation also touched upon the regulatory and other technological limitations in mainstreaming drones for various tasks and how the technology is being used to help underserved communities.

iRobot CEO Colin Angle joined hardware editor Brian Heater for a fireside chat about how his company became the commercial backbone of the Boston robotics community. Angle discussed the many trials and errors of launching a robotics startup and why the Roomba was the exact right device to cement the companys place as the leader in household robotics. The CEO also offered up advice for new students making the move from university research into a commercial market and discussed the importance of funding from departments like DARPA in helping robot companies stay afloat.

Gill Pratt, CEO of the Toyota Research Center (TRI), joined TechCrunchs managing editor Matt Burns on stage to chat about TRIs work in building robots that assist the elderly. Pratt explained that this is a passion of Toyota and addresses a growing need to provided assistance and care to a quick-growing segment of the population. Burns later asked Pratt to comment on Elon Musks recent call to have the U.S. government regulate AI, saying the technology is the greatest threat to our civilization a notion not shared by Pratt.

Rodney Brooks of Rethink Robotics talks with Connie Loizos about his upcoming book, which he hopes will dispel talk of AI as an existential threat to mankind (along with a little requisite shade thrown Elon Musks way). The iRobot co-founder and former MIT CSAIL director also discusses the pain points of building a robotics startup and the ethics of autonomous vehicles.

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Watch all of the panels from TC Sessions: Robotics right here - TechCrunch