SoAIR2019

Invited Speakers

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• Amitkumar Pandey, Softbank Robotics Europe, France
Title: The 21 st century of Social Robotics revolution: the opportunities, changes and challenges
Abstract : Never before in the history of robotics, robots have been so close to us, in our society. We are 'evolving', so as our society, lifestyle and the needs. AI has been with us for decades, and now embodied in robots, penetrating more in our day-to-day life. All these are converging towards creating a smarter eco-system of living, where social robots will coexist with us in harmony, for a smarter, healthier, safer and happier life. Such robots are supposed to be socially intelligent and behave in socially expected and accepted manners. The talk will reinforce that social robots have a range of potential societal applications including healthcare, education, and that as a robotics community, we can easily align our R&D and Innovation around the centrality of wellbeing of people. The talk will begin with illustrating some of the social robots, highlight what does it mean to develop a socially intelligent robot, and the associated innovation and R&D challenges. This will be followed by some use cases, user feedback and the market analysis, and how innovation in the domain can be achieved. The talk will open floor with some open challenges ahead, including the impact on education, job opportunities, social and ethical issues, and emphasize on the greater needs of a bigger multi-disciplinary effort and eco-system of different stakeholders including policy makers and media.

Bio: Dr. Amit Kumar Pandey has served as the Head Principal Scientist (Chief Scientist) at SoftBank Robotics Europe (formerly Aldebaran Robotics), Paris, France. Earlier for 6 years he was a researcher in Robotics and AI at LAAS-CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research), Toulouse, France. His PhD work on "Towards Socially Intelligent Robots in Human Centered Environment", is awarded among the best three Ph.D. Theses in Robotics in Europe for the prestigious Georges Giralt Award. He is also the founding coordinator of Socially Intelligent Robots and Societal Applications (SIRo-SA) Topic Group (TG) of euRobotics, and a contributor in its Multi-Annual Roadmap (MAR), which aims to shape the future of robotics in Europe in collaboration with European Commission (EC) through PPP SPARC (one of the largest civilian-funded robotics innovation programme in the world). His research interest falls at the intersections of People, Society and Robotics & AI, and how such new technologies can address some of the needs and have positive societal impacts. On these aspects, he has been actively contributing as the designer, principal investigator (PI), industrial coordinator and researcher in more than 12 large scale European Union (EU) and national projects. He has published more than 60 research papers on wide ranging topics, delivered more than 100 invited talks/keynotes/lecture, and served as panelists in diverse international venues. He is also the recipient of various international recognitions and awards in science, technology and education centered around robotics and AI.