Advisory Council

RoboBusiness 2009 thanks the following industry leaders for their commitment to the event and their assistance in building the RoboBusiness Conference Program:

Colin Angle, Chairman of the Board, CEO, and Co-Founder, iRobot

Colin Angle guides the strategic direction of iRobot. One of the world’s leading authorities on mobile robots, Angle is an industry pioneer with more than two decades of experience. Under his leadership, iRobot is at the forefront of the growing robot industry, delivering home and government robots that are making a difference. Angle’s keen sense of business strategy is a driving force behind iRobot’s successful identification and execution of expansion opportunities. With Angle’s guidance, iRobot has formed key strategic partnerships, building on decades of expertise from each partner to create new and innovative robot solutions.

Angle’s leadership and vision for the future of robots have been recognized with numerous professional awards. He has been named a Mass High Tech All-Star, one of Fortune Small Business Magazine’s Best Bosses and New England Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young with iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner. Angle sits on the board of directors of Axon Labs, Inc. and is active on the Robotics & Intelligent Machines (RIM) advisory board. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in computer science, both from MIT.

Rodney Brooks, Director, Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Rodney Brooks is a robotics entrepreneur and Founder, Chairman and CTO of Heartland Robotics, Inc. He is also a Founder, Board Member and former CTO (1991 - 2008) of iRobot Corp (Nasdaq: IRBT) and the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (on leave) at MIT. Dr. Brooks is the former Director (1997 - 2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelliigence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He received degrees in pure mathematics from the Flinders University of South Australia and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1981. He held research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and a faculty position at Stanford before joining the faculty of MIT in 1984. He has pubished many papers in computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, and artificial life.

Dr. Brooks serves as a member of the     International Scientific Advisory Group (ISAG) of National     Information and Communication Technology Australia     (NICTA), and on the Global Innovation     and Technology Advisory Council of John Deere & Co.     He is an Xconomist at Xconomy and     a regular contributor to the Edge.

Henrik Christensen, KUKA
Chair of Robotics, Georgia Institute of Technology

Henrik Christensen is director of Georgia Tech’s new Robotics Program and a Distinguished Professor of Computing. Christensen‘s main research interests include human centered robotics, sensory/data fusion, and systems integration. Christensen has contributed over 200 publications within robotics, vision, and artificial intelligence, including nine books. He has served the most prestigious robotics journals, and is currently serving on the editorial board of five journals in robotics and AI.
 
Christensen is the founding chairman of the EU network of excellence in robotics - EURON (1999-2006), and is a science advisor to the European Commission, as well as several international companies.

Christensen has held positions at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (1988), Aalborg University (1991-1996), University of Pennsylvania (1996), and the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (1996-2006). He received his certificate of apprenticeship in mechanical engineering (1981), and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Aalborg University (1987 and 1990).

Micheal Gennert, Head, Computer Science Department &
Director, Robotics Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Bio to come.

Tom Hopcroft,
Executive Director, Massachusetts Robotics Cluster

Bio to come.

Matt Mason, Professor, Computer Science and Robotics and Director,
Robotics Institute, Carnegie
Mellon University

Bio to come.

Paolo Pirjanian, President and CEO, Evolution Robotics

Paolo Pirjanian is President and CEO of the Evolution Robotics. Paolo was a lead engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working on robotics technologies for space exploration. Results of his work have been featured on CNN and other media. Paolo was also a faculty member in the Computer Science department of the University of Southern California, where he teaches graduate level artificial intelligence. He holds a Ph.D. from Aalborg University in Denmark. He recently won the IEEE and Automation “Early Career Award” for the best, upcoming roboticist of 2004.

Lloyd Spencer, President and CEO, Coroware

Lloyd has over 23 years of experience in the computer and networking industries in engineering, product marketing, business development, and sales management. His expertise spans a spectrum of service provider industries and technologies, including distributed network computing and embedded systems development. Previously, Lloyd served as Vice President of Marketing and Sales at eQuest Technologies; Solutions Unit Manager at Microsoft; Assistant Vice President and Business Unit Manager at Newbridge Networks; and Product Line Manager at Sun Microsystems. Lloyd received his Bachelors degree from Cornell University with a major in Biology and Animal Science and with an emphasis in Immunogenetics.

Bill Thomasmeyer, President, National Center
for Defense Robotics

Bio to come.