Thursday, May 24, 2018

2:00 pm – 2:45 pm

In order for robotics to cross the chasm of stereotypical use cases, such as factory settings or just as a novelty, more ubiquitous acceptance of robots in our culture will involve careful collaboration between development disciplines including hardware, software, and industrial design; along with an ecosystem of practitioners and end users.

The story of the Tega robot is one example of the fruits of that collaboration between MIT Media Labs and Cooper Perkins. Tega is a research tool for teams to study the social interaction between humans and robots, extending into teaching at schools and helping the sick heal in hospitals. The development of the platform required the integration and parallel development of robot cognition, animation art, industrial design, software engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering. In this session, Harald Quintus-Bosz, co-founder and CTO of Cooper Perkins, and Jin Joo Lee, Character AI Engineer at Jibo, will cover some of the highlights in the development of developing the Tega robot. There will also be a live demonstration of Tega.

Dan Kara, Vice President, Robotics, WTWH Media LLC

As Vice President, Robotics at WTWH Media, Dan Kara is charted with driving the company’s robotics and intelligent systems initiatives. Prior to joining WTWH, he was Practice Director, Robotics at ABI Research and Chief Research Officer for Myria RAS, both research and advisory services firms focused on automation, robotics and intelligent systems. He served as President of Robotics Trends, the producer of Robotics Trends and Robotics Business Review online news, information and analysis portals, as well as a number of robotics business development events. Mr. Kara is a widely known research analyst and well respected thought leader who has extensive business development experience with nascent technology markets that are poised for rapid growth.

Harald Quintus-Bosz, CTO and Co-Founder, Cooper Perkins

Harald Quintus-Bosz is co-founder and CTO of Cooper Perkins. He has over twenty years of product development experience. Quintus-Bosz started his career designing medical X-ray imaging equipment later joining IDEO then moving to semiconductor startup, Matech. He holds an S.B. from MIT and an M.S. from Stanford University, both degrees in Mechanical Engineering. Quintus-Bosz serves on the Board of Advisors of the MIT Museum is a co-founder and lecturer of an engineering class (2.729, Design for Scale) at MIT.

Jin Joo Lee, Character AI Engineer, Jibo

Jin Joo Lee is a Character AI Engineer at Jibo Inc., creator of the world’s first social robot for the home. She graduated with a PhD from the MIT Media Lab in the Personal Robots Group with Cynthia Breazeal (2017). She also received a BS/MS degree in Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (2009). Her research focus and expertise is in human-robot interactions, social artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data-driven nonverbal behaviors, specifically modeling social and emotional communication using machine learning algorithms to develop lifelike and interactive robot characters. Her interdisciplinary approach combines methodologies from robotics, AI, social psychology, and cognitive science to develop socially intelligent robots. She led the development of the Tega robot, an android-based platform designed for highly-expressive and engaging interactions with young children.