Robotics and AI will create millions of jobs by 2030 and we barely know what they are yet!

All the latest news from Silicon Valley Robotics! Use the code "SVR" for 15% discount to TechCrunch Robotics and AI Sessions on March 3.

We've relaunched our 'startup accelerator' with regular pitch workshops and more mentor office hours, masterclasses and expert workshops! 

We've just launched the SVR Startup Accelerator at Circuit Launch. Join one of our Thursday night Startup Workshops where we provide feedback and make matches with our mentor network.

You can see our Mentor Network or apply to join it here. 

Next SVR or SVR Member Events:

• Robot Startup Speakers - Homebrew Robotics at Google - Jan 29
• Robot Build Night - Circuit Launch - Jan 30
• Bots & BBQ - Circuit Launch - Jan 31
• Women's Monthly HackDay - Circuit Launch - Feb 2
• Circuit Launch Open Tour - Circuit Launch - Feb 4
• Bots&Beer - TBC - Feb 5
• Robot Build Night - Circuit Launch - Feb 6
• AWS Deep Racer Masterclass - Circuit Launch - Feb 12
• Founder Friday - Circuit Launch - Feb 14
• Bots&Beer - TBC - Feb 19
• Construction Robotics Forum Anniversary - SF - March 2 
• TechCrunch Robotics and AI Sessions - UC Berkeley - March 3 (use "SVR" for 15% discount)

Do you want to host a network event in 2020? SVR members can pick dates/events on our SVR calendar page.  

All the robotics news!

Here's my take on the problem with venture capital and robotics in an article by Jonathan Vanian in Fortune. 

According to predictions by Dell Technologies and the Institute for the Future, 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 have not even been created yet. That means that today’s businessmen and women, everyday employees and even big-enterprise CEOs don’t have the slightest whim about what the future workplace may resemble. Moreover, the new integration of artificial intelligence in everyday work processes will lead to the creation of over 130 million novel roles.

Samsung's new robot Ballie.  Spectrum's most popular 100 robot stories.  Lionfish killing harpoon throwing robots in Florida. Living robots made from frog cells. Robots evicting homeless mothers in Oakland. Silicon Valley autonomous driving startup AutoX bootstraps all the way to driverless taxis in China. 

Save the date March 2 for our Construction Robotics Forum Anniversary in SF! Congratulations to Construction Robotics for making a book out of building their robots SAM and MULE! And congratulations to Siemen's Juan Aparico Ojea , who makes the list as 2019 MIT Innovator under 35. Pittsburgh based Ed Tech startup Digital Dreams takes over Anki and will push out a developer version of Vector (yay!).

Ted Larson's favorite robot at CES is the Charmin toilet roll robot!  Although these robot kittens from Elephant Robotics are pretty cute. Also cute.. or perhaps delicious.. CocoTerra is a robot chocolate maker. And Robohub's Robots Podcast celebrated the 300th episode with ivs with past and present team members, including myself. The Podcast team is doing an amazing job these days!

OhmniLabs brought joy to children in hospital over the holidays. Farmwise applied machine learning to salads. Commercial drones get the go ahead in US airspace finally. Volkswagen has a robot car charger for electric vehicles. Construction robots expected to overtake human workers by 2025!?! Good write up of our Global Robot Cluster Organization efforts. And Toyota announces the start of a whole human/robot city plan in Japan.

Commiserations... Zume Pizza lays off more than 400 staff as another fall out from Soft Bank Vision Fund change of pace/direction. According to SV Biz Journal and Axios the impacts include Momentum Machines (aka Creator), Seismic and Honor Technology. Cafe X shuts city locations to focus on airports. And The Robot Report did a round up of the startups that didn't make it through to 2020.  

Silicon Valley Robotics News & Services:

Where's Andra? I'm on a NASA UAV Advisory Committee on Thursday and Friday this week. And hosting the Women in AI dinner in SF on Tuesday 28th. Look out for new book After Shock out on Feb 4 celebrating 50 years since Alvin and Heidi Toffler's Future Shock. More than 100 luminaries like Ray Kurzweil, Alan Kay, David Brin give their take on the future. I'm honored to be included. And good reading too.

Want to speak at a conference too? I always recommend member companies for speaking gigs and now SVR has a database of upcoming application deadlines, sorted by deadline date. (SVR members only).

Want to browse our resume database? SVR has an up to date database of people searching for work in robotics, in every career imaginable. Contact [email protected] for access (SVR members only).

We have new robotics white papers, reports and strategic plans on the SVR Reports & Publications page.  We've just added a map/list of all the robotics research labs in the Bay Area - there are 50 just counting govt/academic labs! And finally, we're collecting resumes again so that SVR members will have access to talented roboticists. 

What about letting us organize a tour or event for you! We provide Innovation Tours for many different groups, starting with a simple 1 hour Circuit Launch tour and talk about robotics, up to two day program including visiting robot startups, robot cafes, robot demos and a selection of top speakers in AI, ML, Quantum, Sensors, Interaction and Robotics.

We can even host a Team Building event for you? Imagine your whole company having fun building and programming their own dancing, singing, sumo bots - racing self-driving cars on our track - experiencing the latest VR games - or doing wood or metalwork. What's more, we can provide 'Design Thinking' and 'Future Forecasting' workshops too. Contact [email protected] re WORKSHOPS 

And finally, Silicon Valley Robotics swag - the Robot Block Party tshirts are back in our new shop!! Also #WomenInRobotics stuff!!

Video of the fantastic speakers and panels at the Women in Robotics Ada Lovelace Day Celebration at UC Berkeley.

Other Events, Expos or Funding Deadlines:

DOE has just opened up a call for funding proposals and one of the topics is new construction technologies. ie. building and construction robots. 

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Nominations for the 2020 Engelberger Robotics Awards are now being accepted. The awards will be presented in the categories of Leadership and Application. Nominate a Candidate The 2020 Joseph F. Engelberger Robotics Awards will be presented during Automatica on June 16-19, 2020 in Munich, Germany. Nominations are due by February 1, 2020. 

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DeveloperWeek 2020 (Feb 12-16) is almost here!

Every year, we invite companies & groups to host Partner Events during DeveloperWeek in and around the San Francisco Bay Area. They are a great opportunity for your company or group to connect with the thousands of developers, engineers, and potential customers participating in DeveloperWeek 2020.

Your DeveloperWeek 2020 Partner Event could be a meetup, party, workshop, panel, or any other format you choose. You can host at your company offices — or we can help you find a location near the Oakland Convention Center during the show.

To help grow the dev community — we'll list your Partner Event on the DeveloperWeek 2020 website free of charge. If you'd like us to promote your event to our community or want to hold your event onsite at DeveloperWeek 2020, we have marketing & sponsorship packages for this very opportunity.

Let us know if you are interested by completing this form or contacting me at [email protected] or 415.412.2285.

Questions? Hit reply and let me know! 

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TC Sessions: Robotics+AI 2020 on March 3 at UC Berkeley. (Use "SVR" for 15% discount)

TechCrunch's Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 on March 3 on UC Berkeley’s campus will bring together over 1,000 top robotics and AI technologists, founders, investors, and researchers for one day of networking and interviews at Zellerbach Hall. The event features exciting speakers, such as Tye Brady (Amazon Robotics), Eric Migicovsky (Y Combinator), Dror Berman (Innovation Endeavors) and many more!

At this party, you can get in front of new customers and investors with an Early-Stage Startup Exhibitor Package. Packages provide high-visibility for early-stage startups to ensure that you'll be networking and meeting people all night long. Book a package today for $2200 and you'll get:

• - 4 Attendee Tickets
• - Demo Table
• - Tabletop Sign
• - Power 

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National Robotics Week

National Robotics Week is coming up on April 4-12 2020. 

In the past, perhaps you had robotics competition, expo, class, open house — all great things that help us showcase the strength of robotics in the U.S. and expose more and more of the public to the excitement of STEM and the robotics industry. Participate again this year!  

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IEEE/IFR IERA Forum

The IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation will be held on 17 June 2020 in conjunction with the International Symposium on Robotics, Munich, Germany.

During this Forum, selected finalists of the IEEE/IFR Innovation & Entrepreneurship Award for Outstanding Achievements in Commercializing Innovative Robot and Automation Technology (IERA Award) will have the opportunity to present their story of the genesis of a successful innovative product in robotics and automation from its very inception to the final state of commercialization in a series of plenary lectures. The ultimate winner will be chosen by an evaluation board, consisting of distinguished individuals from industry and academia.

The purpose of the IERA Award is to highlight and honor the achievements of the inventors with value creating ideas and entrepreneurs who propel those ideas into world-class products. This is a key element to the continuing success of robotics and automation today. Active infusion of innovation and entrepreneurship into technological advancement is regarded critical at this juncture to strengthen a healthy balance between research and practice as well as a healthy growth of industrial and commercial sectors in robotics and automation. In a joint event the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the International Federation of Robotics will therefore recognize and honor outstanding achievements of entrepreneurs in the commercialization of innovative robotic and automation technology.

2020 IERA Call for Nominations/Applications 

Deadline: 15 March 2020

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SBIR & STTR Funding

Are you a part of a startup looking to transform your ideas into products and services? Consider applying for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding. Total funding available is approximately $200 million every year and about $1.5 million per startup.

• Do you need help with market research associated with commercializing your innovation? 
• Are you unfamiliar with the registrations you must complete BEFORE you submit your application?

If you are a first-time DOE SBIR/STTR applicant and have not received prior DOE support, then you are eligible for free support that helps you prepare a competitive application.

Please visit https://www.dawnbreaker.com/doephase0/apply.php for more information about DOE's free FY 2020 Phase I Release 2 application assistance. 

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AAMAS 2020 AKL May

The International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, IFAAMAS, established an award in 2006 to recognize publications in the autonomous agents and multiagent systems field that have made influential and long-lasting contributions. Candidates for this award are papers that have proved a key result, led to the development of a new subfield, demonstrated a significant new application or system, or simply presented a new way of thinking about a topic that has proved influential. A list of previous winners of this award appears at https://www.ifaamas.org/award-influential.html

This award is presented annually at the AAMAS Conference, which will be held this year in Auckland, New Zealand in May 2020. 

Winning papers must have been published at least 10 years before the first day of the

conference. Therefore, papers eligible for the 2020 award must have been published in May 2010 or earlier, and in a recognized scientific forum (e.g., journal, conference, or workshop).

To nominate a publication for this award, please send the full reference plus a brief statement (200 words of fewer) arguing the significance of the paper to Kate Larson, chair of the 2020 IFAAMAS Influential Paper Award committee, [email protected].

Nominations are due by February, 20, 2020.

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VISIT US! at Circuit Launch in Oakland.

36,000sq ft of space, including production and prototyping facilities, storage, lock up offices and professional support.

8000 Edgewater Dr Oakland

https://circuitlaunch.com

Plus the best Brazilian BBQ on hardware startup nights! 

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More information at svrobo.org/membership

Robotics and AI is leaving the research lab and reshaping the 21st century and Silicon Valley is at the epicenter. Support our robotics startup ecosystem by joining the first non-profit industry group formed by robotics and AI companies, research institutions to innovate and commercialize new technologies.

Our initiatives include speaker events, reports and feature series, investor forums, demo days, Women in Robotics, design guidelines, developer workshops and the big Robot Block Party.

Many SVR memberships are due for renewal at this time of year so please watch for renewal notices or you can log in to svrobo.org using this email address and update your billing details and your company profile - if you are a company member. Or sign up for membership (see below):

STARTUP SVR MEMBERSHIP ($300) connects startups with investors via demo days, investor forums, VC office hours, and startup competitions. Listing in the SVR online directory and you can expo at the big Robot Block Party.Startup SVR Membership

COMPANY SVR MEMBERSHIP ($600-$5000) connects robotics companies to all the Silicon Valley Robotics network and events, including speaker salons, expos and opportunity to feature in SVR reports. Receive weekly updates. You can expo at the big Robot Block Party and also get free Robojobs.org posts.Company SVR Membership

SVR GLOBAL PARTNERS ($950) connects affiliated or international companies to all the Silicon Valley Robotics network and events, including speaker salons, expos, and introductions. Receive weekly updates. You can expo at the big Robot Block Party and reach out via SVR newsletters.SVR Global Partners

SVR SPONSORS and MARQUEE MEMBERS ($15000) receive all the benefits of all SVR memberships plus featured Robojobs.org posts, featured position on our website and directory, the opportunity to host workshops and events, feature in SVR reports and steer the agenda at the SVR Advisory Board.SVR Sponsors and Marquee Members