Confirmed Talks – INBOTS Conference

WP1: Promote entrepreneurship and nontechnical support to SMEs

Workshop 1: Promote entrepreneurship and non-technical support to SMEs: success stories and new opportunities

16th October at 9:40-11:10 and 11:30-13:00

Prof. Nicola Vitiello Ph.D., is the leader of the Wearable Robotics Laboratory of The BioRobotics Institute and founding partner of IUVO, a spin-off company of The BioRobotics Institute (Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna) in the field of wearable technologies founded in 2015 by a team of post-doctorates, professors and researchers with the objective to exploit the achievements of national and European research projects, such as the FP7 ICT CYBERLEGs.

Francesco Ferrois the Chief Executive Officer of Pal Robotics, a Spanish company, based in Barcelona, dedicated to the Research & Development of humanoid robots and robotic parts.

Andrea Bisson is a Project Manager of Next Generation Products Platform – Robotics & Automation Products at Comau. He is a computer engineer, specialized in algorithmics and robotics.

Prof. Enrico Bonadio is Senior Lecturer in Law at The City Law School, where he teaches various modules on intellectual property (IP) law. He holds law degrees from the University of Florence (PhD) and the University of Pisa (LLB), and is Associate Editor and Intellectual Property Correspondent of the European Journal of Risk Regulation.
Enrico is Visiting Professor in IP Law at Université Catholique de Lyon (France) and University of Turku (Finland) as well as visiting lecturer at the LLMs in Intellectual Property offered by WIPO in Turin (Italy) and Ankara (Turkey). Enrico has also been a Visiting Scholar at Melbourne Law School (University of Melbourne, 2013) and City University New York (CUNY Law School, 2016). He is member of ATRIP (International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property) and The Law Society of England and Wales. He regularly lectures, publishes and advises in the field of UK, European and international intellectual property law.

Sebastian Weide studied Environmental Systems and Resource Management (M.Sc.) and European Studies (B.A.) at Universität Osnabrück (Germany), Université de Liège (Belgium) and University of Victoria (Canada). Since 2016, he has been working for VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH as a research fellow in the department of Demographic Change and Futures Studies. At the Institute for Innovation and Technology (iit) Sebastian works on a variety of analysis projects and conducts data analyses of different kinds.

WP2: Promote debate on legal, ethics & socio-economical aspects

Debate on legal, ethics & socio-economic aspects

18th October at 15:00-16:30 and 17:00-18:30

Prof. Maarten Goos is Full Professor of Economics and Institutions at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance at Utrecht University.Hisresearch focuseson labor markets including technological progress, labor market intermediation, inequality and institutions.
Maarten received his PhD from the London School of Economics (LSE) and held positions at Erasmus University Rotterdam, University College London and KU Leuven before joining Utrecht University. He also held visiting positions at Princeton University, the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE, Fudan University Shanghai, the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyand Boston University. He is currently coordinating the Future of Work initiative at Utrecht Universityand is involved in various initiatives by the European Commission,national policy institutesand multinational corporations

Santiago Mediano

is an expert lawyer in Intellectual and Industrial Property, and Competition Law and is head of the Firm’s Enforcement Department. He works on the national and international market, forms part of the USA Desk and works closely with the Firm’s offices in Portugal and Qatar. He has been one of Spain’s top intellectual-property lawyers for more than 20 years and enjoys international renown.eacher and contributor on courses and conferences and Master’s programmes on Intellectual Property at the Madrid universities Universidad Complutense, Universidad Autónoma and Universidad Carlos III and the World Intellectual Property Organisation. He is a regular speaker for professional associations and bodies.

President of the Madrid Bar Association (ICAM) and member of the Spanish Royal Academy for Jurisprudence and Legislation, ALADDA (the Spanish Literary and Artistic Association for the Defence of Author’s Rights), Dialogo (Spanish-French association for the development of bilateral relations between France & Spain), French Chamber of Commerce, Madrid Cultural Centre for the Armies and the Anthroposophical Society in Spain.

WP3: Promote highly-accesible and multidisciplinaty education programs

Highly-accessible and multidisciplinary education tools in robotics

18th October at 15:00-16:30 and 17:00-18:30

Prof. Emanuele Menegatti is Full Professor of the School of Engineering at Dept. of Information Engineering of University of Padova. Menegatti’s main research interests are in the field of Robot Perception and 3D distributed perception systems. In particular, he is working on RGB-D people tracking for camera network, neurorobotics and service robotics. He is teaching master courses on “Autonomous Robotics”, “Three-dimensional data processing” and bachelor course in “Computer Architecture” and a course for school teachers on “Educational Robotics”.
He was coordinator of the FP7 FoF-EU project “Thermobot” and local principal investigator for the European Projects “3DComplete” and “FibreMap” and “Focus” in FP7; “eCraft2Learn” and “Spirit” in H2020.
He was general chair of the 13th International Conference “Intelligent Autonomous System” IAS-13 and was program chair of IAS-14 and IAS-15. He is author of more than 50 publications in international journals and more than 120 publications in international conferences.
In 2005, Menegatti founded IT+Robotics, a Spin-off company of the Univ. of Padua, active in the field of industrial robot vision, machine vision for quality inspection, automatic off-line robot programming. In 2014, he founded EXiMotion a startup company active in the field of educational robotics and service robotics.

Dr Carina Girvan is a lecturer in Education in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University.
Carina’s experience as both practitioner and interdisciplinary researcher provides her with distinctive ways of thinking and working in the field of robotics in education; with her first degree in linguistics, post-graduate teaching qualification from Cambridge University, experience as a primary and secondary school teacher, and both Masters and PhD from the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin.
Carina’s research focuses on emerging technologies and the design of transformational educational experiences. Her work involves the use of virtual worlds and explores the opportunities and constraints of education in these spaces. This includes the design of robotics tools, classroom and virtual world design and orchestration, lesson design and learning outcomes.
Carina currently leads the evaluation of Educational Robotics for STEM (ER4STEM, funded by the European Commission), working closely with teachers and researchers from multiple disciplines from the social sciences to computer science and engineering, as well as industry partners. She considers the pedagogic principles behind the design of educational robotics activities, examines the interaction of learners with robots and evaluates the impact of these activities on learners themselves. Her work has informed the development of a framework for educational robotics activities in STEM.

Dr. Dimitris Alimisis, is the Scientific Leader of EDUMOTIVA, the European Lab for Educational Technology. Former Professor of Educational Technology at the Education Department of the Higher School of Pedagogical & Technological Education, former adjunct professor at the Hellenic Open University in the field of Science Education and currently adjunct professor at the post-graduate course “STEM Education” (Univerityof Patras, GR). He holds a B.Sc. In Physics from Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Athens, and PhD in Science Education from Dept. of Philosophy – Pedagogy – Psychology, Univ. of Athens. His research interests include educational technology, teacher training, and adult learning, with a focus on the use of robotics as tool for Constructivist and Constructionist learning. His teaching experience includes, among others, educational technology courses for teachers, Science Education in the Greek Open University, Didactics with new technologies in post-graduate courses at the Univ. of Athens, “Training of Trainers” in the field of adult education (Greek Open University), STEM Education master course (University of Patras).

Prof. Dr. Andre Seyfarth research focuses ion the movement processes involved in the locomotion of humans and animals. Various methods of motion analysis, biomechanical modeling and experimental setups are used to gain a comprehensive understanding of motion. He isa memberofthe running laboratoryworkinggroupofthe TU Darmstadt.

Camila Shirota received a Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL while working at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. During her Ph.D., she investigated able-bodied and above-knee amputee balance recovery from tripping perturbations during walking.

Her research interests include neuromuscular control of human gait and its applications to rehabilitation; biomedical signal processing and systems identification.

WP4: Coordinate standardization and benchmarking

Standardization – Challenges and needs of Interactive Robots in the industry, healthcare and service domain

17th October at 15:00-16:30 and 17:00-18:30

Saskia Maresch is an expert in International and European standardization. Her work focuses on identifying the current needs and gaps for the development of a framework for the standardization of interactive and wearable robotics. She is a project manager at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) and the leader of the WP4 of INBOTS “Coordinate standardization and benchmarking”.

Dr. Arantxa Rentería has a PhD in Computer Engineering, a MSc in Robotics & Advanced Manufacturing Technologies and the degree in Computer Sciences. Since then, she has been working in Tecnalia in the field of robotics and automationShe has worked in many projects, both on research and on development of industrial systems. She has managed projects related to robotized cells, mobile robotics, data acquisition and monitoring systems, human-machine interfaces, robot simulation, automation for environmental engineering. She has directed several post-graduate thesis related to robotics and robot simulation applications. She has attended different Congresses, Symposiums and Seminars as a speaker, being author of many papers and a book on Robotics. She also worked as assistant professor of robotics during 1997-2000, at the University of Deusto in Bilbao.

Andras Toth is research associate at the Healthcare Technologies Knowledge Centre (Budapest University of Technology and Economics ). He is member of the COST Action CA16116 “Wearable Robots for Augmentation, Assistance or Substitution of Human Motor Functions”.

Massimo Di Pardo is a Mechanical engineering at the Fiat Research Centre (CRF), where he is involved in activities concerning to manufacturing technologies, in particular joining technologies. In 2003 he created, and since then leads, a work-group dedicated to the “Industrial Ergonomics”. He is involved in the development of methodologies and technologies for the efficiency improvement of workplaces including Human Robot Collaboration, exoskeletons and other innovative technologies. Since 1998, he has participated and coordinated several national and EU funded projects.

Jule Bessler is a researcher at Roessingh Research and Development. During her Master’s program in Human Technology in Sports and Medicine at the German Sports University Cologne, Jule laid her focus on rehabilitation technologies and assistive devices. Her main interest is the development and evaluation of innovative technologies that facilitate the rehabilitation and everyday life of people with impairments. As a junior researcher, she is involved in two European projects dealing with benchmarking and safety testing of wearable robotics.

Francesco Ferro is the Chief Executive Officer of Pal Robotics, a Spanish company, based in Barcelona, dedicated to the Research & Development of humanoid robots and robotic parts.

Prof. Michiel de Looze, senior scientist at TNO (Netherlands Institute for Applied Research), is involved in (inter)national research and innovation projects in close collaboration with industry. He is also appointed part-time at the VU University in Amsterdam as a professor in Production Ergonomics. His research focus is on collaborative and wearable robots and their impact on industrial performance and job quality. His research gives input to the design and implementation of new applications, mainly in the manufacturing, logistics and construction sector. Moreover, in field and laboratory studies he evaluates the results of new applications in terms of performance and various job quality measures including physical, cognitive and psychosocial aspects of the workload.

Prof. Gurvinder Singh Virk is an electrical engineer who has majored in control systems and robotics. He has expertise in wide areas of control theory and its application to real-world scenarios and specialist knowledge in model-based control, intelligent embedded systems, neural-networks, fuzzy logic, evolutionary system, etc. His expertise in robotics covers mobile and industrial robots able to move around in complex and hazardous environments to perform a variety of tasks. Gurvinder is also deeply involved in international robot regulation. He was the convenorof ISO/TC 299/WG2 Personal care robot safety and is currently the leader of ISO/TC 299/WG6 Modularity for service robots. His job at InnotecUKis to lead the technical aspects of the R&D projects that they are involved in to ensure commercially viable products are realizable from the technical innovations made.

WP5: Propose a regulatory &risk management framework

Gianpiero Negri received the MSc degree summa cum laude in Computer Science from Salerno University and a Master in Industrial Research, Mechatronics and Automation from CNR-ITIA (Italian National Research Council, Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation, 2005).

Since 2012 he’s R&D Project Safety Manager for several CNH Industrial programs, including autonomous vehicles safety system development. In 2017 he entered as independent scientific expert the European Commission register of Expert Peer Reviewer – European Research Council (ERC). His current research interests include mechatronics, functional safety, automotive control systems, system engineering, robotics, electronic control system of advanced machines, scientific dissemination and artificial intelligence.

WP6: Promote societal and socio-economic uptake of robotics

Rehabilitation 4.0: What robots will change!

17th of October at 9:40 – 11.10

Robert Riener is full professor for Sensory-Motor Systems at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, and full professor of medicine at the University Hospital Balgrist, University of Zurich. He obtained a MSc in mechanical engineering in 1993 and a PhD in biomedical engineering 1997, both from TU Munich, Germany. He finished the habilitation in Biomechatronics at TU Munich in 2003. In the same year he became professor in Zurich. Riener investigates the sensory-motor interactions between humans and machines, and applies his findings in advanced rehabilitation robots, exoskeletons and virtual reality environments. He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed articles, 20 book chapters and filed 23 patents. He is the initiator and organizer of the Cybathlon, which was honored with the European Excellence Award and the Yahoo Sports Technology Award.

Domenico Prattichizzo is Full Professor at the University os Siena. From 2002 to 2015 Associate Professor of Robotics at the University of Siena. Since 2009 Scientific Consultant at Istituto Italiano di Tecnoloogia, Genova Italy. In 1994, Visiting Scientist at the MIT AI Lab. M.S. degree in Electronics Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Robotics and Automation from the University of Pisa in 1991 and 1995, respectively.

Monica Malvezzi is Assistant Professor of Mechanics and Mechanism Theory at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione e Scienze Matematiche of the University of Siena. Education: She got the Laurea degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florence in 1999 and and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mechanics from the University of Bologna in 2003. Academic Experience: From 2003 to 2008 she was researcher at the University of Florence, where she collaborated with the MDM lab (Laboratorio di Modellazione Dinamica e Meccatronica). Currently she collaborates with the SIRSLab of the University of Siena.

Gionata Salvietti received the PhD on Information Engineering and the “Laurea Specialistica” (con Lode) in Information Engineering, specialization in Robotics and Automation, from the University of Siena on 2012 and 2009 respectively. He was visiting researcher at DLR Institute for Robotics and Mechatronics, Germany in 2012 and visiting student at TAMS group, University of Hamburg, Germany in 2008. From 2012 to 2015 he was Post-Doc at Advanced Robotic Lab at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. From 2016 he is Assistant Professor of Robotics and Automatics at Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics of University of Siena and he is Affiliate Resercher at Advanced Robotic Lab at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.

Thomas Rydberg is the CEO of Robotics Care AB.
Born and rised in Sweden, Thomas has a double degree from Stockholm University in Sweden, and has fillfilled complementary sudies in USA and in Switzerland. During his life, Thomas has been living in six countries and spent more than 25 years in different top management positions in international IT/Telecoms Industry.
Since 2013, Thomas has been head of a startup company in healthrobotics, named ROBOTICS CARE. This company has the objective to develop robotics products that will assist persons who have a neurological desease and will facilitate for old and fragile persons who can not manage their personal hygiene themselves.

Kilian Baur studied mechanical engineering with the focus on dynamics and mechatronics at the ETH Zurich. He received his Master degree after writing his Master thesis on data mining in robot-assisted training. After several month working as a research assistant in the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab of the ETH Zurich and at the Institute of Mechatronic Systems of the BFH Bern Kilian Baur worked for three years as an engineer in the research and development department of Andritz Hydro AG in Zurich. In June 2014 he joined the Sensory-Motor Systems Lab as a PhD Student. His research focuses on the social reward in robot-assisted multi-subject rehabilitations.