Workshop 6: Promote societal and socio-economic uptake of robotics

17th October at 9:40-11:10 and 11:30-13:00

Organizer:
Susanne Frennert, susafren@kth.se (Royal Institute of Technology, KTH)
Britt Östlund, brittost@kth.se (Royal Institute of Technology, KTH)

Motivation:

Robots need to be adopted and used if they are to have an impact on the general public quality of life. This may seem obvious, but there are numerous of examples of technologies that, while based on sound engineering, have limited uptake. The success of a robotics depends on the interplay between numerous factors: characteristics, needs and preferences of the end-users; system characteristics and features; and societal factors including organizational, regional and national policies and stances. As our main goal for the workshop is to initiate a discussion about societal and socio-economic uptake of robotics, we want to foster vivid networking and discussions among the participants. We will have a series of short position statements from a selection of workshop participants on their interests in and perspectives on societal and socio-economic uptake of interactive robotics. Thereafter will we have a discussion on the characterization of interactive robotics and influencing factors on societal and socio-economic uptake (break out groups).

Workshop objectives:

This workshop focuses on three aspects of societal and socio-economic uptake of interactive robotics: (1) the societal values, needs and expectations of robotics and what interactive robotic application are needed, (2) identify a set of key areas where interactive robotic applications potential to meet society’s needs are great and clear (ethically acceptable and socially desirable), and (3) consider effects and potential impacts on the environment and society.

Session#1 –  17th October at 9:40-11:10
  • 9:40 – 10:40: Rehabilitation 4.0: What robots will change! (Prof. Robert Riener, ETH Zurich)
  • 10:40 – 11:10: Supernumerary Robotic Fingers to Compensate and Augment Human Manipulation Abilities (Domenico Prattichizzo, Monica Malvezzi, GionataSalvietti, UNISI)
Session#2 –  17th October at 11:30-13:00
  •  11:30 – 12:20: Challenges and opportunities of robotic innovations in elderly care (Thomas Ryberg, Robotics Care AB)
  • 12:20 – 12:40: The Cybathlon- Bionic Olympics to benchmark assistive technologies (Kilian Baur, Florian L. Haufe, Roland Sigrist, Katrin Dorfschmid, and Robert Riener, ETH Zurich)
  • 12:40 – 13:00: The Role of Education for the Social and Economic Uptake of Robotics: the Case of the eCraft2Learn Project (Dimitris Alimisis, DimitriosLoukatos, EmmanouilZoulias, Rene Alimisi)

 

Confirmed talks: Robert Riener, Domenico Prattichizzo, Monica Malvezzi, Gionata Salvietti, Dimitris Alimisis, Thomas Ryberg, Kilian Baur.