Covariant, MassRobotics and The Engine discuss the road from lab to market at TC Sessions: Robotics – Nob6

It’s a protracted highway taking an thought from the R&D stage in a lab to profitable commercialization, particularly if you’re speaking about applied sciences as advanced and dear as robotics and synthetic intelligence. 

Robotics startups require costly tools — like industrial-grade sensors, 3D printers and managed environments — for constructing and testing prototypes. And although robotics is weathering the present slowdown in enterprise funding higher than different tech sectors, it’s nonetheless too straightforward for revolutionary innovations to stay caught within the lab.

That’s why we’re thrilled to welcome three specialists within the course of to TC Classes: Robotics on July 21: Pieter Abbeel, co-founder and chief scientist at Covariant; Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and VP of packages and group at MassRobotics; and Milo Werner, common companion at The Engine.

In a session entitled “From Cage to Stage: Commercializing AI and Robotics,” the panel will share their appreciable expertise in what it takes to maneuver a robotic or AI course of from the lab to market.

Right here’s what our panelists convey to the desk, and why we will’t wait to get their tackle the subject.

Along with founding Covariant, which develops AI for robotic automation of warehouses and factories, Pieter Abbeel is the director of the Berkeley Robotic Studying Lab and co-director of the Berkeley Synthetic Intelligence (BAIR) Lab.

A founding companion at AIX Ventures, a VC agency targeted on AI startups, Abbeel additionally hosts The Robotic Brains podcast, which explores what AI and robotics can do at the moment and the place they’re headed.

Abbeel’s work has been featured within the New York Occasions, Wall Road Journal, BBC, Rolling Stone, Wired, Tech Overview and (in fact) Nob6.

Because the co-founder and vp for packages and group at MassRobotics — whose mission is to allow and develop the following era of robotics firms — Joyce Sidopoulos develops high-impact packages for the robotics ecosystem. She matches startups with potential funders and clients, connects college students and expertise to potential employers and works with academia to commercialize analysis. 

Beforehand, Sidopoulos served because the innovation and robotics group supervisor for the Massachusetts Know-how Management Council to develop the robotics ecosystem in Massachusetts and the New England area, which helped result in the founding of MassRobotics. 

Sidopoulos spent 14 years with the USN’s Naval Undersea Warfare Heart, the place she served in varied roles, together with chief scientist, methods and check engineer and sonar methods analyst/engineer. She has held senior roles at Basic Dynamics and different protection contractors.

Milo Werner is a common companion at The Engine, a VC agency that helps deep tech firms bridge the hole between discovery and commercialization. Beforehand, she was a companion at Ajax Methods the place she led midstage investments throughout power, transportation, agriculture and industrial functions. 

At Tesla, Werner led the brand new product introduction crew and helped launch the Mannequin S powertrain and Mannequin X. She additionally ran the brand new product introduction crew at Fitbit, and he or she led engineering and product improvement at Zola, a microgrid startup offering distributed power to households in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Werner earned a BS in Geology and Civil and Environmental Engineering from the College of Vermont, an MS in Civil Engineering and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how.

TC Classes: Robotics is a free on-line occasion, taking place July 21. You’ll be able to catch the entire classes and be part of the robotics group on-line for pace networking, chats and one-on-one conferences. Merely register right here totally free.