Robots Podcast is the place to hear the latest well informed news and views on robotics. I’m honored to have been interviewed about Robot Launchpad for the July 13 2012 podcast. Robots is a non-profit association dedicated to providing free, high quality, educational information for the robotics community and the general public, based in Switzerland but with global tendencies and they’ve been producing great podcasts since 2006. New episodes are released every two weeks, on Fridays at 9am GMT.
In addition to insights from high-profile professionals, Robots will take you for a ride through the world’s research labs, robotics companies and their latest innovations. I’m afraid I was on vacation when the Robot Launchpad podcast was released so I didn’t publicize it very well, but the whole list of podcasts HERE is great listening.
Today we talk with Andra Keay, founder of Robot Launch Pad, robotics startup accelerator based in Silicon Valley, about latest events, lean startup methodology, funding, and gender.
Andra Keay
Andra Keay is a Robot Startup Evangelist passionate about growing robotics, one startup at a time. Supported by key actors in the field including Erin Rapacki and Ryan Calo, Robot Launch Pad aims to bridge the software, web and mobile startup worlds of Silicon Valley and San Francisco with the robotics community and the flourishing local maker sphere. In this interview, Keay tells us about the excellent startup events organized by Robot Launch Pad in April including the Robot Retreat, the Robot Block Party, Mega Startup Weekend and a Cloud Robotics Hackathon. She brings us into her world of lean startup methodology, minimum viable products and tells us about the importance of women in science.
Before launching Robot Launch Pad, Keay completed her Master of Digital Cultures in the area of Human-Robot Interactions at the University of Sydney. Her project on “the Naming of Robots” explored how roboticists express identity and gender through their technology. Passionate about robotics for a long time, she has also been running science and robot workshops for children since 1995, including coaching competition teams in Moonbots, First Lego League and RoboCup Jnr.
Finally, don’t miss Andra Keay’s other blogs, Robot State and Andragy.