The fifth edition of one of the most influential events for the European robotics community took place last week from March 12-14 in Rovereto, Italy. As always, the 3-day program was jam-packed with dynamic workshops, seminars and talks, making it possible for robotics stakeholders from the whole of Europe to discuss the future of robotics research and industry, find new potential business applications and expand their professional network.
iCub and COMAN side by side at the Forum exhibition
This year’s Forum revolved around the theme “City of Robots” and explored a wide range of human interactions with robotic technology – from healthcare and industrial robotics to AI and robot cognition. The Forum exhibition was held at the MART Museum of modern art, but some robotic demonstrations were also distributed across the city.
Some activities also aimed to promote the wider acceptance of entrepreneurship among robotics researchers. The Entrepreneurship Workshop, for instance, provided several teams with top-notch entrepreneurship coaching and gave them a chance to demonstrate their ability at pitching innovative ideas to a panel of investment judges. The euRobotics Forum Entrepreneurship prize awarded to the most convincing team went to the Robocone project, which envisioned a swarm of robotised cones capable of performing automatic beaconing and signalling tasks on the road without human intervention.
The Forum is organised by euRobotics AISBL, a Brussels based non-profit association, specifically designed as a Public-Private Partnership with the European Union. The collaboration with the European Commission is thus one of the association’s main priorities aimed at developing and implementing a future research and innovation strategy in the field of European robotics.
Next European Robotics Forum will be held in March of 2015 in Vienna, Austria.
