Robots Remake the Workplace: The Photo Gallery

Wade Roush

April 15th, 2013

Warming Up

A high-powered group confers before Xconomy's April 11 forum, Robots Remake the Workplace. Left to right: Kelton Temby of InTouch Health, Gordon Bell of Microsoft, Colin Angle of iRobot (appearing via telepresence on the RP-VITA robot), Rod Brooks of Rethink Robotics, and Yulun Wang of InTouch Health.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Welcome from SRI

Curt Carlson, president and CEO of SRI International, welcomed attendees to the forum.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Training Baxter

Rodney Brooks, chief technology officer at Boston-based Rethink Robotics, explained how human workers can train Rethink's flagship bot, Baxter, to execute pick-and-place operations simply by moving its limbs to the proper positions.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Will a Robot Steal Your Job?

In an Oxford-style debate session, participants debated the motion "In the long run, robotics isn't taking jobs away---it's adding them." Left to right: Vivek Wadhwa of Singularity University, Aaron Edsinger of Redwood Robotics, Rich Mahoney of SRI International, and Wade Roush of Xconomy.

Photo by Mickey Cook

TUGs for Hospitals

Aethon founder and CEO Aldo Zini explained how his company conceived and built a system of autonomous mobile robots that ferry medicines, food, waste, and other materials around hospitals.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Kubi-Doo, Where Are You

In a panel on robotic telepresence devices, Marcus Rosenthal of Revolve Robotics (right) showed the company's Kubi robotic iPad stand. Left: David McCann of Double Robotics.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Wherefore Art Thou Romo

Romotive founder and CEO Keller Rinaudo, who participated in the telepresence panel, shows off Romotive's flagship bot Romo, a motorized iPhone platform.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Networking Hour

Rod Brooks from Rethink Robotics (left) speaks with Robert Bolles of SRI (center) and Harlyn Baker of EPIImaging (right).

Photo by Mickey Cook

Global View

Rich Mahoney of SRI speaks with Aldo Zini of Aethon and Alice Resnick of SRI.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Conversation Time

Peter Marcotullio of SRI (left) speaks with Anthony Jules, chief operating officer at Redwood Robotics.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Standing Out in the Crowd

Center: Sonal Chokshi, senior opinion editor at Wired.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Kubi at Work

An employee at Revolve Robotics watched the proceedings via telepresence.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Double Hubbub

Attendees mingle with the Double mobile telepresence bot from Double Robotics.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Kilroy Was Here

More fun with Double.

Photo by Mickey Cook

From DIY Drones to Multinational Robotics Maker

Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics and former editor of Wired, spoke about his company's drone-aircraft business and other innovations enabled by the mobile revolution and the resulting drastic drop in electronics prices.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Standing Room Only

A capacity crowd takes in Anderson's talk.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Robots in Unconventional Workplaces

An expert panel talked about the emergence of robots in unusual workplaces such as hair restoration clinics, horticultural facilities, movie studios, and solar farms. Left to right: Jim McCollum of Restoration Robotics, John Kawola of Harvest Automation, Ian Sherman of Bot & Dolly, Wasiq Bokhari of Qbotix, and Wade Roush of Xconomy.

Photo by Mickey Cook

Colin Angle Appears via RP-VITA

In his first-ever speech via telepresence, iRobot CEO Colin Angle talked about his company's collaboration with InTouch Health to build the RP-VITA robot, which lets physicians extend their physical presence to far-away clinics and hospitals. After Angle's remarks, Yulun Wang (far left), CEO and founder of InTouch Health, took over the presentation.

Photo by Mickey Cook

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Apparently, these were the droids they were looking for.

A standing-room-only crowd convened at SRI International last Thursday to meet the robots and robot makers being highlighted at Xconomy’s second annual Silicon Valley robotics forum, Robots Remake the Workplace. The bots in attendance ranged from the fairly tall—namely RP-VITA, a human-sized hospital telepresence robot built by InTouch Health and iRobot—to the very short, in the form of Romo, a motorized iPhone platform built by Romotive.

Also on hand were some human luminaries like Rod Brooks of Rethink Robotics, Aldo Zini of Aethon, Colin Angle of iRobot, Yulun Wang of InTouch Health, and Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics.

The event focused on the business opportunities and the employment challenges arising as robots find their way into more kinds of workplaces, from offices to warehouses to hospitals. We’ll bring you a more thorough summary of the event later this week, but for today, we just wanted to show you a few of our favorite photos. The images in our slideshow above were taken by Mickey Cook of SRI International and are used by permission. (Thanks Mickey!)

This is a also good time to convey our thanks to our event host SRI International, our event sponsor Silicon Valley Bank, and our media partner RoboBusiness Leadership Summit 2013. We also had help promoting the event from Silicon Valley Robotics and National Robotics Week.

Wade Roush is a freelance science and technology journalist and the producer and host of the podcast Soonish.

Wade Roush is a freelance science and technology journalist and the producer and host of the podcast Soonish. Follow @soonishpodcast