Speaker: Steve Cousins, Executive Director, Stanford Robotics Center and Chief Technology Officer, Relay Robotics
Title: Impact First: Advancing Robotics in the Real World
Date and Time: Friday, February 2 at 12:15 PM CT
Location: Center for Robotics and Biosystems (CRB), Tech M164 and Zoom
Abstract:
Robotics is changing the world, driven by focused teams of diverse experts. Willow Garage operated with the mantra “Impact first, return on capital second” and through ROS and the PR2 had enormous impact. Autonomous mobile robots are finally being accepted in the service industry, and Savioke (now Relay Robotics) was created to drive that impact. This talk will trace the evolution of Relay robots and their deployment in hotels, hospitals and other service industries, starting with roots at Willow Garage. As robotics technology is poised for the next round of advances, how do we create and maintain the organizations that continue to drive progress?
Bio:
Dr. Steve Cousins is the Executive Director of the Stanford Robotics Center, and Chief Technology Officer of Relay Robotics. As founder and CEO of Savioke, he developed and deployed Relay – an autonomous delivery robot that works in human environments to help people. Steve was previously President and CEO of Willow Garage, and is a founding board member of the Open Source Robotics Foundation. Steve received the IEEE/IFR Award for Invention and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation award in 2017. His PhD is from Stanford University, and his BS and MS computer science degrees are from Washington University.
