In this episode, Audrow Nash and Christina Brester conduct interviews at the 2016 International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation conference in Moscow, Russia. They speak with Albert Efimov, Chief Roboticist at Skolkovo, about creating an innovation cluster for robotics companies; Anastasia Uryasheva, CEO of Tsuru, about a waterproof unmanned aerial vehicle; and Borris Rozman, General Director of GNOM, about underwater vehicles.

This is the first of three interviews from the conference.

Links

• Download mp3 (16.5 MB)
• IASP 2016 conference website
• Skolkovo’s robotics page
• Tsuru’s homepage
• GNOM homepage
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Ekaterina Bereziy, Founder and CEO of ExoAtlet, about exoskeletons for the disabled and for rehabilitation.

Transcript below.

The ExoAtlet Exoskeleton assists people with full or partial lower body paralysis, as well as people with muscle weakness to perform a walking gait. This has been shown to improve blood pressure, decrease muscles and bone degeneration, and prevent urological diseases and disorders. In addition to walking, the ExoAtlet exoskeleton can be used to go up and down stairs. Lastly, ExoAtlet is experimenting with using electrodes to stimulate the contraction of people’s muscles as a way of improving their fitness.

ExoAtlet is one of many robotics companies working with Skolkovo, an innovation cluster based in Moscow, Russia. Skolkovo provides these companies with resources and expertise to encourage their success.

Below is the video of a man walking down the aisle to be married in an ExoAtlet Exoskeleton.

Ekaterina Bereziy

Ekaterina Bereziy is the Founder and CEO of ExoAtlet. She studied Mechanics and Mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University and has a Master’s in Business Administration from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

Links:

• Download mp3 (15.9 MB)
• Link ExoAtlet’s webpage
• Link to Skolkovo’s Robotics webpage
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Audrow: Hi, welcome to Robots Podcast, can you introduce yourself?

Ekaterina: My name is Ekaterina Berez. I am the co-founder of ExoAtlet, an exoskeleton for rehabilitation.

Audrow: Can you tell me a bit about ExoAtlet?

Ekaterina: ExoAtlet started at 2014. We developed our project for 2 years, but that is not the only time that we had together. The team joined with this type of development 15 years ago. ExoAtlet is the result of our investigations from 15 years. Now, we have the first version of the exoskeleton that provides the rehabilitation for people with their injuries. The next generation of ExoAtlet will provide the possibility to work for people after strokes.

Audrow: You mentioned the team has been working for 15 years. Where has this taken place?

Ekaterina: In the Damascus State University laboratory, a mechanical and robotic laboratory. We developed a lot of different kind of robots, and they started up the World Festival of Robotics for students and for PhDs. They worked for different kind of system controls for wheels robots and for walking robots. The exoskeleton was one of the ideas that they had for this for years. As the technical solutions have been providing good for making the kind of provides so the ideas to develop the exoskeleton for this exact idea (like rehabilitation) has been implemented and we started the company and conducting it like a commercial product.

Audrow: What stage of development are you currently at? Do you have users?

Ekaterina: We finished the certification process in the Russian market, so it means that we have the certified product that we start to sell 2 months ago. It’s the first product that we developed, but we have the second one that is on R&D stage. It will be more complicated or with the more complicated system control that provides the initiation of the movement. When the person can initiate by his own leg, the movement of the ExoAtlet. It provides the help only to make a step. The person controls it by his own muscles. It’s a great idea, and I mean that it’s a great implementation of an idea. The solution is very interesting. We will implement the control of the power of engines. It means that we will provide MDs to control-

Audrow: What is NMD?

Ekaterina: MD, just medical doctors. We will provide for medical doctors through their implication that we will help them to decrease their assistance of the ExoAtlet for the patients who can work, who can already make steps by themselves. To provide them less help. Then to make them work during the training.

Audrow: Almost like an exercise or rehabilitation. Now, about Skolkovo, how you are related to them?

Ekaterina: Skolkovo Foundation is the government fund that provides help for startups. We started to the member of Skolkovo in 2014 as we started up the company. We are working on this Skolkovo robotic sensor now in the territory of this center.

Audrow: That territory is basically a campus that startups work at?

Ekaterina: Yeah, it looks like a campus and the robotics startups have facilities to make engineering product types, and work with equipment to try and prove some concepts. Also, Skolkovo has their IP center that helps us a lot with our intellectual property and to issue patents. Skolkovo provides a lot of services for startups.

Now they have good infrastructure for the kind of startups who has a great idea, but not a lot of stuff to have goods or to have the specialist for each kind of idea, for implementation. I mean, for example, the PR support is one of the most important things for startups, because it’s necessary to get feedback from the market, and to involve the development process from the market, people who are close for example, in order to implement this idea in real life.

The PR solutions are really cool. And for us it was helpful. Some key medical doctors work with us now, and who made very important clinical trials for us. We have a connection with them, because of the PR support of Skolkovo team. Also, we need funding. It’s investors who can provide their investments for developing the product. Skolkovo has their own Skolkovo fund that is government money. It’s a grant money that they can provide the startups to support some ideas that are very innovative. Maybe too much innovative for the venture capitalist. Skolkovo provides the grant money for the first stage of development to prove this kind of concepts, and next step is to invest. It’s great support.

Audrow: Would you describe the ExoAtlet exoskeleton?

Ekaterina: The first version of ExoAtlet is the exoskeleton for rehabilitation people with the spinal cord injury. We make clinical trials with different kinds of level of spinal cord injury even with very high level. It works. Now, we have 2 models. There is one for hospitals, and for working for medical doctors with the patients, with the different kind of patients. I mean with the height of 160 centimeters.

Audrow: Okay, so about 5’2 to 6’2.

Ekaterina: The weight is about 100 kilos, maybe up to 120 kilos of the patient for hospitals to use. Another model is for personal using at home. The ExoAtlet is adjustable, it’s easy to fix the exact lenses of the part of legs.

Audrow: What does it look like, before we talk about adjusting legs.

Ekaterina: It’s just like the external skeleton. External metal parts that fixes to the legs and to the upper part of the body. With the cells that you can put in your shoes and the person can put it on in a sitting position.

Audrow: It has rigid components that go along with the legs on the outside of the leg?

Ekaterina: Yes, exactly.

Audrow: Then a foot insert that goes into the sole or goes with the sole of your shoe. There is a component that the user wears that’s sitting about at their lower back?

Ekaterina: Yes.

Audrow: They are strapped in by various straps that you pull? Kind of like snowboard boot straps.

Ekaterina: Yes, it looks like the snowboard boot straps. It’s very easy to strap it and fix it.

Audrow: You mentioned adjustable.

Ekaterina: Yes. It’s adjustable. We have a lot of adjustments because all people have different measurements.

Audrow: How does this exoskeleton compare to the exoskeletons of similar companies?

Ekaterina: Most of the skeleton for rehabilitation tried to solve the same problem. It’s to give an easy way to stand up, to start the walking movement, and provide walking steps to speed up the rehabilitation process. The differences in engineering solution, in some plugins, and in that way the exoskeleton works. I mean some of them, for example, have the initiation of the movement. It means that the patient with the not completely damaged spinal cord can initiate the moment. Or, for example, some of the exoskeletons can’t help with standing up to a totally disabled person. It means that they don’t have good parts, or good motors to help the person to stand.

They can make movements and make steps when the person is already in vertical position. Most of the exoskeleton needs crutches. It’s because the patient using the exoskeleton needs to keep their balance. The only way to keep their balance is to have the third points that you can get with a crutch.

Audrow: In our conversation earlier you mentioned you can use your exoskeleton on stairs?

Ekaterina: Yes. Normally in the rehabilitation process medical doctors don’t use stairs, but if we see or if we talk about the people of the stroke, for them they are going up and down stairs. It’s one of the exercises that improves and speeds up the rehabilitation process. Also for the person using it we need to go up and down the stairs because we have a lot of stairs in our surroundings. Normally to go out of the apartment you need to go down the stairs. If we talk about the personal use for people who, for example, has a totally damaged spinal cord, it means that it’s rather difficult to have a hope to reconstruct to start working by themselves.

It means that this kind of exoskeleton will provide them help in walking. Of course, we need to go up and down the stairs and stairs are different with the different heights of the steps, and it means that you should adjust the height of the step according to the stairs. It’s a very important thing.

Audrow: Is this something that the user needs to adjust or is there any sensing onboard that tells how high the steps are by itself, and then adjusts how large of the step it will have to take?

Ekaterina: Now it has sensors, but it works with the stairs, but sometimes you need just to step towards the obstacle. It means there are different kinds of obstacles, and sometimes you need to set up yourself like a pilot, the exact height to make a step. The situations are different. We have a variety of possible adjustments.

Audrow: The step parts and those types of things. To step higher or lower, further, shorter.

Ekaterina: Yeah. Of course, different people have different ways of walking. Some of us have very high steps. For example, normally for us to make high steps, but others make very short and low steps. We can adjust it, and not with the program is plug in the computer and do it once and for years. Now you can adjust exact minutes just by changing parameters in the application.

Audrow: Now, what kind of actuators are on the exoskeleton? It has electric motors?

Ekaterina: Yes.

Audrow: Where are they? Tell me a bit about them.

Ekaterina: They are in the upper parts of the leg.

Audrow: They are at the hip and the knee, correct?

Ekaterina: The knee yes, but they’re just a little bit higher. It works, yes. It moves with the knee joint and the hip joint, so 4 of them, because we have 4 joints. It works with batteries that are set up also onboard. It’s about 6 hours that you can walk.

Audrow: That is a long time. About 6 hours of regular use?

Ekaterina: Yes. Just walking on the normal surfaces. If of course if you will stand up and sit down for 6 hours batteries needs more taxing. You need to charge it.

Audrow: Yes. For sure. What kind of sensors does the exoskeleton have?

Ekaterina: It’s a lot of sensors that helps to get diverse composition.

Audrow: Skill accelerometers and gyroscopes to do some sort of status on this?

Ekaterina: Yeah. We have all of them, and we have some sensors for initiation to get information that it will be initiation of movement by their leg.

Audrow: Would that force sensors?

Ekaterina: It’s force sensors and mind sensors.

Audrow: The mind sensors are very interesting, but the force sensors, where are they in the exoskeleton? Is it on the feet?

Ekaterina: It’s on the feet, yes. It’s on the strips.

Audrow: On the strips; what do you mean?

Ekaterina: I mean that it’s onboard of the ExoAtlet.

Audrow: It’s on the component like along the legs? Sensing the amount twerk at the motor, at each joint basically? So what do you use that information for?

Ekaterina: For system control. To make more comfortable for a person, because when you wear anything that provides some movement you need to be comfortable. It’s one of the great problem how to provide comfort for person that can’t do specific moments. It’s huge that should fit well to make the comfortable moments.

Audrow: You also use the 4 sensors, so the ones in the feet in this kind of thing or the ones in the feet to help the user to walk by themselves, correct? You determine where the weight is loaded and then you decided if you can step or not? Is this the approach?

Ekaterina: It works like this. We have mind stimulation system also.

Audrow: I want to get to that after, but just to see if I understand the force sensors it’s basically if I have my weight on my right leg then I know I can move my left leg kind of thing. The force sensor would determine that I have my weight on my right leg, so then my left leg moves. Is this how it works?

Ekaterina: One of the solutions can be like this. We have a little bit different solution. It does matter. This kind of technical details they are very our specifics. This kind of idea can work. It means that you need to make the system control, but will provide the most natural pattern of walking. From bio-mechanical point of view you can do it like a normal person. This is the goal. There are different kinds of system controls that use their data from sensors, from their voice sensors, from their food on these trips, on the different points of the leg, because it means that the angles and so on. You can get the exact information of the movement that is in the second, and provide by the drives the next phase of movement.

Audrow: Electromyogram sensors sense the electric potential on the skin, and this potential increases when things like a muscle flexes. If I flex my muscle we can detect this with an electromyogram, a myogram sensor on it. You are using this for control of the exoskeleton as well?

Ekaterina: No, we use the myostimulation systems. It’s a multiple control system. It’s for stimulating, for additional stimulation of muscles. For example, who have the people who have damaged spinal, completely damaged spinal cord, we can provide them walking, but we can’t make their muscles work during this process, because their spinal cord is completely damaged, and there is no signal. It means that we can stimulate their legs muscles, and it’s like the stimulation of the normal walking process of muscles during the walking.

Audrow: Are you electrocuting the muscle in order to stimulate it?

Ekaterina: Yeah. We put on the skin the electrodes, and we will provide their electrical nodes to the muscles through the skin. It makes muscles work.

Audrow: It’s like when you are shocked. When you get shocked somehow, and all of your muscles contract. It’s like that kind of thing, but you are using those deliberately to help the user to walk?

Ekaterina: Yeah. It doesn’t help to the walking process, but it helps muscles to reconstruct their function, because we provide the signal, the electro stimulation signal to exact muscle that must work on this phase of walking.

Audrow: How much voltage are you applying to the, I mean is it allowed? Does it hurt?

Ekaterina: No. It doesn’t hurt. It can be just from the very low that you as a normal person would never feel, but the muscle will be on the strong physical condition. It’s adjustable. It’s there. It’s one of the very complicated parts of physical therapy. It’s normally implemented during physical therapy programs. Now medical doctors use it in the position when the person laid on the sofa for example, and they do this kind of mind stimulation without movements. We implemented to the exoskeleton, and combined it with the steps. We use the information of the angles from the joints and provide to the system, the control mind stimulation and elector signals.

Audrow: Has this approach been proven to be beneficial to do the steps in combination with the electrical stimulation? Is it proven or have you found that the results of doing these 2 things is better than the result of doing either separate?

Ekaterina: Now we have a big investigation. We have the clinical trials that the results of it will be comparing between the ExoAtlet with mind stimulation system. It will be interesting result.

Audrow: What was the second one?

Ekaterina: Local Mob. It’s their rehabilitation. They are very big and very famous rehabilitation equipment. It’s very expensive, so it costs about some hundred thousands dollars. Normally it’s on the rehabilitation centers, because it’s for the big one. It’s with the treadmill and their exoskeleton implemented in this system. It’s proved, and they were a lot of researches and clinical trials that proved this kind of robotic mechanical therapy. In Russian market we have about 75 such kind of machines. Now we have the clinical trials. The idea is to compare their results of 2 weeks of training for patients who can walk a little bit, who can do some steps.

It’s not the people with the completely damaged spinal cord, but it’s the spinal cord damaged injury people who feel their legs, and who can do some steps. We will measure the differences of improvements.

Audrow: I see, and use that to determine the validity of the method. That makes sense. What are the future steps for ExoAtlet?

Ekaterina: We will develop the next version. We are working on it. We are on R&D process, the ExoAtlet for people of the stroke. Then the cerebral palsy is one of the biggest problems that is around the world. We will provide to different exoskeletons to the market.

Audrow: What would you think would be a timeline for this?

Ekaterina: We plan to make a presentation of the ExoAtlet for people of the stroke next summer. It will be summer of 2017. For children with the cerebral palsy it will be the next generation maybe in 2 or 3 years.

Audrow: Do you have any stories or anecdotes of people using your exoskeletons?

Ekaterina: We have one exoskeleton that has been implemented in hospital in the north city of Russia. There is one patient who walks with it almost every day and use it almost every day. One of the really interesting stories that it was his own idea. It wasn’t like a PR idea. He decided to marry, and for him it was very important to stand, but not to sit during this process. He entered the church with his future wife wearing the ExoAtlet and using the ExoAtlet. He made steps with this kind of sound … It’s really so cool. That Saturday morning was very interesting, because he came to his wife, and he provided her his hand and she supported him a little bit, but it was really impressive.

Audrow: Thank you!

Alan Turing animatronic robot. Source: Skolkovo

Tho startups from the robotics cluster at Skolkovo — Nanosemantics and Lexy — teamed up with the Russian Neurobotics, to recreate a robotic version of the British computer science pioneer Alan Turing. The robot, which recognizes natural speech and has nine degrees of freedom for its facial animatronics, made its debut at the 2015 Startup Village event Skolkovo’s Hypercube last month. Check out the video of Alan interacting with the public. 

https://youtu.be/1wCLLoDO-7M

Students brainstorm during the design hackathon at the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

https://youtu.be/Rh4B4dhyIHk

• Skolkovo conference seeks to jumpstart new areas of expertise for Russian robotics
• Skolkovo International Robotics Conference: ‘A wheel of opportunity’
• Sino-Russian robotics boosted as Skolkovo signs $200M deal with Chinese investment fund

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

As one of Skolkovo’s resident companies, ExoAtlet – which builds medical exoskeletons – stands to benefit from the new agreement. ExoAtlet’s team hopes to create an exoskeleton that will cost as little as $10K.

Russia’s Skolkovo Foundation and the Chinese Cybernaut Investment Group signed an agreement yesterday in Beijing to create a joint Russian-Chinese business incubator, a robotics accelerator program, and an investment fund worth $200M. 

The partnership aims to bridge the two countries, with the business incubator supporting at least 15 companies resident at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, and a robotics center located in China that will help accelerate the Skolkovo residents into the Chinese market. The $200M venture fund, provided by Cybernaut, will invest in Skolkovo residents that are conducting research into IT and robotics, space, energy-efficiency technologies and new materials.

The agreement comes into force in the third quarter of 2015 and Skolkovo Senior VP for Innovations Vasily Belov estimates that as much as $50M will be funnelled into Skolkovo companies before the end of the year, but says that it’s too early to say how much of this will go into robotics ventures specifically.

Founded in 2005, Cybernaut is one of China’s largest venture capital and private equity firms, currently managing more than $500M in US funds, and more than ¥50B in RMB. According to Cybernaut Project Manager Xiang Li, the fund “will incubate and help 3-5 companies be listed in China or foreign capital market” each year. Based in Hangzhou, a city known for its manufacturing capabilities in hi-tech sectors such as electronics and medical engineering, the fund typically invests in domestic companies, and is interested in personal service and industrial robotics in China “because China has a huge domestic demands for robotics”. The fund recently created a platform company called their “Cybernaut robotic group” that aims to develop and upgrade the Chinese robotic market: “We are trying to acquire related robotic companies to develop our product line,” said Li.

The Skolkovo deal, which has been in negotiations since 2013, is Cybernaut’s first Russian venture. “The collaboration with Skolkovo is very important for Cybernaut,” said Li. “We are providing the conditions for close collaboration between Russian and Chinese scientists, developers and entrepreneurs, which will allow us to develop and market cutting-edge technology together.”

According to Skolkovo’s Chief Roboticist Albert Yefimov, Cybernaut is now actively negotiating deals in Russia. In an email interview, Skolkovo’s Executive Director of the IT cluster Igor Bogachev said that Cybernaut is “focused on investing in wide range of service robotics, ranging from robotics for mining industry to educational robotics.”

The agreement brings benefits to both parties.

Russia will gain from the influx of cash, as well as access to China’s manufacturing pipelines and marketplace. According to Bogachev, Skolkovo resident companies “will have a chance to continue their development in the Chinese branch of the robotics center in order to get easier access to the local market … like searching for an investor, or locating production lines [and] access to buyers.”

And China stands to gain, too. According to a report in the Chinese-language Economic Observer, and summarized in Want China Times, despite the 36 industrial parks developed for the robotics sector in recent years, “some companies that claim to be creating robots do not have labs, research teams, or the ability to conduct tests.” From that article:

“In China, 50% of the robot makers produce pirated products. They either reverse engineer existing products of foreign companies or buy old robot designs to manufacture as their own,” said QKM Technology president Shi Jinbo.

It would appear that Cybernaut aims to reverse this trend by importing Russian research and technical expertise.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Skolkovo conference seeks to jumpstart new areas of expertise for Russian robotics
• Robots Podcast: Russian robotics
• 25 Russian companies added to The Robot Report’s global map of robot providers
• Russia looks inward and outward at Moscow’s 2013 Open Innovations Forum

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Participants line up early to register for the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

Part startup/investor mixer, part public showcase, part industry/academic workshop, part hackathon, the Skolkovo International Robotics Conference has its sights on becoming the largest robotics gathering in Europe. Held March 20-22 at the Hypercube on the Skolkovo campus outside Moscow, the event drew over one thousand visitors – this despite the campus largely being a construction site in the middle of a semi-forested area a 40 minute drive from Moscow city centre.

“Our goal is not to be a scientific conference, but to bring talent, money and startup companies together to search for a new generation of ideas,” says Skolkovo Chief Roboticist Albert Efimov, who brought more than 50 speakers from six countries to the event.

Skolkovo Robotics is part of the Skolkovo Innvoation Center, a state-financed tech incubator that is currently home to about 1K startups spread across several tech clusters including IT, biomed, space, nuclear and energy efficient technologies. The Innovation Center is the entrepreneurial-facing branch of the Skolkovo Foundation, a double-sided institution that also administers Skoltech University.

“We are building a city,” says Skolkovo Vice President of Public Relations Alexandra Barschevskaya. Building plans for the technopark include social infrastructure like housing, hotels, shopping, and even onsite schools for the children of Skolkovo’s faculty, students and entrepreneurs. “Participants of Skolkovo (SK) will have access to housing and facilities for a period of ten years, to give them time to organize their science and their business, and then they will move on to make room for the next generation.” The grand vision, which is the brainchild Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and has support from the highest levels of government, is to jumpstart the Russian economy by nurturing technology that will create export opportunities at an international level.

Speakers were treated to a rare sighting of a solar eclipse from the roof of the Hypercube on the first day of the conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

Russia has a long history developing military robotics – according to Efimov, its first military application was during the Soviet-Finnish war in the 1940s delivering explosions to the enemy’s heavily fortified points of defence – and its current fleet of firefighting robots is a testament to its ongoing efforts to remain a global leader in this area. “But how many firefighting robots can you sell?” asks Efimov.

Efimov points out that unlike the American DARPA programs, which have a track record for spinning off defence research into commercial civilian applications, the Russian military doesn’t really invest in or open up new fields for startups.

“There are about 120 government-funded research institutions that are engaged in robotics at the moment, and they are all trying to get through the same small bottleneck of the military budget,” said Efimov, who believes this is the reason why Russia lags behind the US in commercialization despite its military robotics expertise.

Webot telepresence robot by Wicron, at the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

So if not military robotics, then what? Efimov would like to see Russia playing to its strengths in recognition, artificial intelligence and mechatronics, and suggests that a good niche for the nation could be in telepresence, promotional robotics and personal assistants because the risks are lower in these areas, and the commercial opportunities are growing quickly. But he also points out that falling back on traditional areas of strength, such as AI, is not enough. To create commercial products that can compete in a global consumer marketplace, Russia needs to step up its game in design.

“We want to sell thousands of intelligent assistants and we believe we are as good at AI as Jibo,” said Efimov. “But Jibo has got better design.” These sentiments explain why Efimov’s conference program included a design hackathon and multiple sessions on human-robot interaction (HRI). “Designers and engineers never talk to each other, so Skolvovo needs to be a meeting place where they can get together.”

Students brainstorming for the design hackathon at the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

In a panel discussion titled “Robotics and its role in the revival of Russia,” representatives from the Russian government said that they are currently in the process of writing the nation’s roadmap for developing robotics. Though they were not yet able to release specific details, a comprehensive plan is being cross-coordinated across various branches of government, from the military to the Ministries of Health, Communications and Education, suggesting a shift in spending priorities to include application areas beyond military. “We have good potential on the global level, and so robotics will be included in the list of priority areas for investing in technology,” said Nikolai Kuteev, from the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Cranes at work on the Skolkovo campus. March 2015. Photo credit: Hallie Siegel.

Whatever path to innovation the robotics roadmap eventually suggests, it is clear Skolkovo will play a role in it. But as evidenced by the cranes and earth-moving equipment that surround Hypercube, Skolkovo’s biggest problem right now is that it doesn’t have enough physical infrastructure.

“We were expecting that the construction would be finished between 2017 and 2020 but the economy is so difficult – we know that there will be a transformation here but we don’t know exactly when it will be finished,” said Barschevskaya. The falling ruble, which has impacted building costs, has been a factor in the construction slow down.

Still, the energy at Skolkovo is high, and Efimov isn’t afraid to do the heavy lifting required to keep things moving in the right direction. I look forward to visiting Skolkovo Robotics again soon to see just how far he can take it.

Chief Roboticist Albert Efimov carries a robot at the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

#skrobotics Tweets

Skolkovo Hypercube. Credit: sk.ru

By David Nowak.

On March 20-22, the Hypercube will host Russia’s biggest robotics event, the Skolkovo International Robotics Conference.

Around 1,800 people are registered for the three-day bonanza, which brings robot developers, company CEOs and investors together under one roof to discuss the latest developments in the industry, brainstorm solutions to new challenges, and help startups find the financing they need to turn take their robot from prototype to commercial product.

Albert Efimov, chief roboticist at Skolkovo. Credit: sk.ru

In a short interview with sk.ru, Skolkovo’s chief roboticist Albert Efimov reveals the niche that the Skolkovo Robotics Conference hopes to fill in the world robotics landscape, discloses the amount of investment up for grabs in the pitch sessions, and poses the most curious of questions: Would you kick a robot dog?

What is the key feature of the Skolkovo Robotics Conference?

[AE] It’s important to understand that our robotics event is far more than just a conference: it will consist of four meaningful parts. There’s the conference itself, with over 50 speakers – internationally recognized experts from Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain, Canada, China and Russia. Then we have the exhibition with 30-plus  service and industrial robotics companies, from very early-stage startups to latest-stage robotics firms. We have not one but two hackathons, with  over 30 teams and 100 people competing in both. One hackathon will focus on assisting sensoric- and perception-disabled people, the other will deal with better designs for existing technology. We have dozens of well-established mentors for those hackathons.

Then we have a number of roundtables with venture capitalists, startups and our industrial partners to discuss possible cooperation. We will also have a great investment session with leading Russian and foreign venture capitalists like the Chinese Venture Fund Cybernaut. That’s a glimpse of our activity. Right now we have over 1,800 registered people for our event.

Some of the robots at last year’s event. Credit: sk.ru

The investment community will clearly be well-represented. How much is potentially on offer for startups?

[AE] The venture capital available for our startups runs into the tens of millions of US dollars. There will be pitch sessions featuring 10 to 12 startups from Russia and Belarus.

What will be the guiding topics under discussion at the conference?

[AE] The two principal themes will be why Russia needs robotics and how to make better robots – that is, more attractive and  more useful. Also, we will deal with how to improve commercialization and so on. This is relevant because despite the fact that Russia is a country full of roboticists and IT experts and hardware specialists, we have no robot industry to speak of. There is massive potential, but no result yet. Why does Russia need robotics? What can robotics do for Russia? It’s industry for industry. It’s equipping companies with better tools to do their jobs. That creates a domino effect that can be traced through the entire economy.

How will you measure the success of the conference? Can you quantify its legacy in any way?

[AE] Yes, the main parameter of success is the number and value of venture deals that we strike at the conference. That’s the chief indicator of success. Obviously, it is always our aim to promote our field. Robotics as a theme is very popular in Russia, but we need to translate this enthusiasm into commercial success domestically and, hopefully, internationally.

One roundtable topic that seems particularly interesting is ‘roboethics.’ Can you expand on that a bit?

[AE] Technology today is reaching a point where we need to start a dialogue on how to behave around it. This is not a discussion about computers – you can treat computers in any way you like. But when you start giving computers artificial intelligence and lifelike physical attributes, are there certain behaviors toward them that become unacceptable? You cannot kick a dog, you would be locked up, but would you ever kick a robot dog? Is that acceptable? We’re getting to a point now where we are starting to require a useful discourse on this.

What about current trends in robotics? What are the leading themes today and how will the conference broach them?

[AE] The most visible theme at the moment is drones and UAVs, so this will feature quite prominently at our conference. We will have roundtables on the development and application of unmanned aerial vehicles and a related theme – automated navigation systems. We will be discussing this issue also in the plenary sessions, which will touch upon intelligent robotics in new industrial technologies, robotics and advanced manufacturing technologies, and man and machine – aspects of interaction.

 What role can the Skolkovo Robotics conference play in the world robotics dialogue?

[AE] I would like this to be a window into and out from the Russian robotics community. Companies and investors can come to Russia and get a snapshot of everything that is going on inside the country at the moment. In turn, Russian firms can develop their understanding of international trends and demand patterns so that they can modify or fine-tune their research as they see fit. It’s a showcase of Russian and international technology that, we hope, will become an integral part of the international robotics scene. It is also a wheel of opportunity for investors and startups. Russia is a cheap investment right now, especially with the currency devaluation, so it’s a real chance for investors to get a good deal on Russian robotics.

Are you planning any surprises for the conference?

[AE] Yes. Come to the conference to find out!

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Video: Robotics at Skolkovo

• 2nd International Skolkovo Robotics Conference coming March 1-2 in Moscow

• Robots Podcast: Russian robotics

• Proletarian robots getting cheaper to exploit

•  Russia looks inward and outward at Moscow’s 2013 Open Innovations Forum

• Dmitry Grishin on evaluating robotic investment opportunities

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

http://youtu.be/Bc2WvKr7XpE

In this episode, Sabine speaks with Andrew Gryaznov, co-founder of Cubic Robotics and Roman Luchin, CEO of CyberTech Labs, about robotics in Russia. They provide us with an inside view on robotics education, innovations and startups in their country. The interview was done live at RoboForum in Moscow earlier this month. Roboforum is a cross-disciplinary conference designed to unite the best minds in robotics, including scientists and designers, business people and governors as well as artists, engineers and popular science speakers worldwide.

Speakers at the conference included creator of Hubo, Jun-Ho Oh, iCub’s Giorgio Metta, creator of the Blind Robot Louis-Philippe Demer, Vladimir Konyshev of Neurobotics, Skolkovo’s Albert Yefimov, NanoSatisfi’s Chris Wake, Unbounded’s Melonee Wise, Valery Komissarova of Grishin, and many more.

Roman Luchin
Roman Luchin is Founder of TRIK and CEO of CyberTech Labs in Russia. He started as a researcher in a laboratory of theoretical cybernetics in Saint Petersburg State University, where he developed multi-agent control systems. Faced with two challenges in Russian robotics, young professionals and outdated approaches, he decided to devote himself to the improvement of STEM education through robotics and the creation of new educational tools. As a result, he developed a unified cybernetic platform for education, research, and robotics projects called TRIK. There is continuously growing community around TRIK, including universities, researchers, prototyping labs, and creative teams working to provide everyone with the opportunity to create modern intelligent robots that can “see”, “hear” and collaborate.

Andrew Gryaznov
Andrew Gryaznov is Partner and Co-founder of Cubic Robotics in Russia. Cubic Robotics is developing a personal robot assistant for the home. The first prototype of the robot was completed in October 2012. It was a cardboard box connected to a smartphone based on an Android platform, with specialized software and a speaker. The robot was able turn a fan on and off, and adjust the lighting in a room. Andrew Gryaznov met the idea’s author, Yuri Burov, in Moscow in the summer of 2011. He was part of a team working on the creation of a telepresence robot, when Yuri Burov suggested that they create a home-helper robot, or robot butler, that could communicate, know the answers to thousands of questions and remotely control household objects.

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Watch the live stream from the first annual BAL ROBOTOV Roboforum in Moscow, running May 15-18. Speakers include creator of Hubo, Jun-Ho Oh, iCub’s Giorgio Metta, creator of the Blind Robot Louis-Philippe Demer, Vladimir Konyshev of Neurobotics, Skolkovo’s Albert Yefimov, NanoSatisfi’s Chris Wake, Unbounded’s Melonee Wise, Valery Komissarova of Grishin, and many more. See the full program for this four-day event below. 

Roboforum is a cross disciplinary conference designed to unite the best minds in robotics, including scientists and designers, business people and governors as well as artists, engineers and popular science speakers worldwide.

Live stream begins at 10AM local time. The stream includes a simulcast translation in both Russian and English – to choose your language, select RU or EN at the bottom of the video panel.

​

Program

After laughing uncomfortably at the headline from The Moscow Times reporting about the recent Skolkovo Robotics Conference, I parsed through the wording and found the intended meaning. But that process … from shock and incongruity, to amusement, through multiple second thoughts and a bit of research, to an understanding of the headline … is the same process I went through as I participated in and spoke at the conference.

My interpretation of that headline – removing any sense of political rhetoric¹ – is that robots are getting cheaper and becoming more available to average consumers. This was one facet of the conference and exhibition, but not the main goal.

I’ve been to Russia four times on political consulting and speaking trips but have never seen or participated in anything like the Skolkovo Robotics Conference.

The host for the conference was the Skolkovo Technology Innovation Foundation, a partner in a newly chartered campus of buildings and people challenged with providing education, structure and inspiration for the incubation of Russian start-ups and spin-offs of all types and from all sources. It is government funded through 2020. MIT is collaborating with Skoltech for their Institute of Science and Technology, a private graduate research university. All are located in Skolkovo, a suburb of Moscow.

The campus at present consists of the building in which the conference was held, named the Hypercube, another under construction, and a third laid out to be constructed. The grounds are massive – perhaps 3/4 mile long by 1/2 mile wide. Even during the winter weekend of the conference, tractors, cranes and earth movers were at work moving materials, rocks and dirt from place to place.

Albert Efimov is in charge of all Skolkovo robotic activities which includes the recent weekend robotics conference. His other activities include attempting to inspire and educate Russian politicians, academics, business people, investors and prospective entrepreneurs about what the various Skolkovo entities are offering. Also he is charged with educating about how robotics offers the prospect for significant competitive change for Russian businesses and profits to their investors and entrepreneurs.

The event, as epitomized by The Moscow Times headline, contained all the confusion and mystery of Russia with some even more confusing facts: Russia doesn’t really have or use that many robots.

• The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) tabulated 232 robots were sold into Russia in 2010, down 13% from 2009.
• Of the 232, half were used for welding in the automotive and metalworking industries.
• When added to existing robots, the overall total stock of robots as of the end of 2010 in Russia was just 1,058.
• Very few service robots were produced in Russia and 100% of them were for the military, defense, rescue or space agencies.
• Russia is the 3rd lowest in robot density globally. The bottom five are Croatia, Iran, Russia, India and Ukraine.
• For reference purposes, the top five are Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy and Sweden. The US is 7th.

Russia doesn’t presently have an academic system that supports and encourages entrepreneurship – which is why the Skolkovo project is so important.

• Academics don’t push for the publishing of papers.
• Nor do they encourage patenting or spin-offs.
• One story I was told was about a professor who, when shown a new American robotic invention, said that his group had invented that 10 years ago. But when asked why he neither published it or spun it off as a commercial enterprise he said, “Why? We’re academics!”
• In the March 1st Moscow Times, in an interview with the owner of a large farming conglomerate, the owner was quoted as saying that he has a hard time finding qualified agricultural college graduates because many Russian universities lower their entrance qualifications to be able to fill quotas and get government funding. Consequently their graduates are under-educated and unqualified for technical positions.

When reviewing these facts, my first thought went to a memorable quote by a University of North Carolina associate professor, Terry Sullivan:

“When the only sure thing is change, The only real hope is imagination.”

Albert is charged with inspiring Russians to imagine a future with robots and join with him at the Skolkovo Institute to make it happen. His official foundation title of Project Director of the Information Technology Cluster doesn’t include his unofficial function as Chief Robot Technician.

Albert has his work cut out for him. I think he learned from this conference, as did I, that his next event needs a different set of presenters. His audiences need to meet and talk with successful robotic start-up CEO’s and CTO’s. Winners inspire others to be like them – to win.

***

[1] The conference was completely apolitical except for the absence of a few military participants – users of unmanned aerial vehicles and rescue operations. Other than that, there was no mention of the Ukraine situation.

Sunday afternoon I went for a walk from my hotel to the Kremlin. A couple of exhibitors from the conference (they were from St. Petersburg) caught up with me and we walked together up to the ring road around the Kremlin. We saw a lot of busses and soldiers and crowds of what appeared to be peaceful protesters being cuffed and placed in the busses. We didn’t need to see the Kremlin anyway so we continued our walk in other directions. The next day the Moscow Times said that the government, in anticipation of a large demonstration, attempted to thwart it by setting up a perimeter far outside the Kremlin walls… this was what we walked into and away from.

Later on Monday, as I was leaving Moscow, it began to snow. My taxi driver, a young wide-faced nice looking guy, said not to worry. We’d get to the airport with lots of time to spare. His English was poor but better than my Russian so it became silent in the car.

After a little while he asked if I wanted to use the car’s wifi and I said sure. He gave me the password and I was live and working. Then he asked what I thought about the news about Ukraine. That morning’s The Moscow Times said that Russian troops had entered Crimea, a small portion of Ukraine.

I said that I thought that occupying with armed forces was never a good solution; rather, diplomacy was always the best way to solve problems. We began to have problems understanding each other’s words so he took down his tablet from acting as his map and guidance systems and switched it to be able to speak, read and translate. And the rest of our conversation was done that way, in the snow, looking at the tablet, and, in my case, checking the traffic to make sure we didn’t get killed.

He said that he had uncles and other relatives living in Crimea and that they have been harassed and persecuted in many ways for many years. Recently they were told they could no longer speak Russian – and I thought what if we said Hispanics couldn’t speak Spanish?

I responded that, be that as it may, Putin was coming across in the media as almost Facist. He said that it was Yanukovych, the recently dethroned leader, who was the facist and that Putin was just protecting the rights of Russians in Crimea.

I said that I wasn’t aware of the harassment of Russians but I had heard that Muslims were suffering.

He said that our news was incomplete but that their news was particularly harsh about Obama and his military threats.

When we arrived at the airport, he got out, shook my hand and said that he appreciated the conversation and thanked me profusely. I too very much appreciated the conversation. Even though it was augmented by technology, it was very personal and straightforward. Certainly it stimulated me to read more.  Two sources of up-to-date info about the Crimean Crisis:

Wikipedia article on the Crimean Crisis and Russian Military Intervention
The Moscow Times

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Russia looks inward and outward at Moscow’s 2013 Open Innovations Forum
• Russian robotics companies
• Dmitry Grishin on evaluating robotic investment opportunities
• Robotics Expo in Moscow

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

I was invited last month to moderate a panel discussion on the “Robotics Renaissance” at the 2013 Open Innovations Forum in Moscow. The brainchild of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the Forum – now in its second year – was conceived as a launch point for stimulating Russia’s innovation prospects and furthering international investment in a country that has often been the home of scientific breakthrough and discovery, but which has regularly struggled to benefit from these economically. 

The event, which was co-organized by leading Russian government development agencies, was centered around the theme of  “Disruption and Innovation: Game Changers Powering the Global Market” and brought together global players in government, industry and research to exchange ideas on innovation leadership and education, and to discuss global innovation trends in key areas such as biomedicine and medical technologies, nanotech, smart tech, advanced manufacturing and – not surprisingly – robotics.

This was a major strategic event that had Russia looking both inward and outward, and seemed to be as much about placing Russia on the global innovation map in the eyes of potential investors and partners as it was about bringing recognized innovation experts into Russia so that policy-makers could learn from their experience.

Robotics played no small part in the Forum’s technical program, which was designed in partnership with MIT Technology Review. Take, for example, the Day One plenary session Proven State Leadership Strategies in a Hyper-Connected World with Prime Ministers Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), Jean-Marc Ayrault (France) and Jyrki Katainen (Finland), Director of McKinsey Global Institute James Manyika and moderated by MIT Technology Review Editor-in-Chief Jason Pontin. In this session, Manyika identified five robotics-related areas of innovation (the Internet of Things, automation of knowledge work, advanced robotics, autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles and 3D printing) as part of McKinsey’s disruptive dozen technologies that are showing critical cost/performance breakthroughs that will enable them to touch major sectors of the global economy. Noting that “advanced robotics is clearly everywhere”, Manyika said that what is particularly striking about the development of robotics these days is the fact that we are starting to innovate on how these systems learn and work, and how humans will interface with these.

Human-centered robotics was a key theme of the Robotics Renaissance panel discussion I was part of as well, which was held on day two of the conference and featured an international group of robotics experts from a broad cross-section of the field. Russian venture capitalist Dmitry Grishin of Grishin Robotics launched the discussion by citing the transition of robotics towards consumer markets (enabled by the confluence of cheap components, 3D printing and the ability to outsource manufacturing) as his reason for investing in robotics. He went on to describe two of his recent investments, Swivl and Double Robotics, both of which are likely to be perceived by consumers as belonging more to the domain of personal telecommunications than robotics, and as such are practical examples of business models that are ready for a consumer market right now.

Giulio Sandini, Director of Research at the Italian Institute of Technology and the lead developer of the iCub, said that though machines have become faster and more precise, they must be able to “put themselves in someone else’s shoes” and anticipate the actions of people in their environment if we are to see robots enter our homes and workplaces. He also pointed out that Europe is investing heavily in the field of cognitive robotics, and sees robots like the iCub as development tools for the study of human-robot interaction and not necessarily as end products in and of themselves.

Citing the same factors of lowering production and manufacturing costs as Grishin, CEO and Founder of Intuitive Automata Cory Kidd says he built on his research in social robotics to launch a business based on how human robot interaction can be used to translate into a commercial product; in his case, a robotic weight-loss coach. Kidd said that social cues like eye contact can allow people to intuitively understand how to interact with robots, and that, likewise, the ability for robots to relate to people will become increasingly important as we seek to have complex interactions with them in consumer settings. Kidd’s expertise is in the application of robotics, and his research has shown that there was a market problem that could be solved by today’s robotic technology that was more effective than similar screen-based approaches like weightloss app coaches.

Outside of consumer mass markets, the area where robots and humans arguably come together most intimately is that of medical robotics. Director of the Robot Research Initiative and faculty at the Chonnam National University in Korea Jong-Oh Park described his group’s success with an active capsule endoscope that can be controlled via joystick by a surgeon, drastically reducing procedure times as compared to inactive capsule systems that may take 8-10 hours to arrive in the small intestine after swallowing. He also described his lab’s work on an intravascular therapy microrobot for targeted delivery of drugs. Like the consumer market, the medical market – where single-use devices are often required for safety and hygiene – is sure to benefit from lowering costs of production; Park’s endoscope and other projects developed by his team are actively being commercialized at this time.

Citing the latest IFR statistics, Alexander Lopota (Director and Chief Designer at the Russian State Scientific Center for Robotics and Technical Cybernetics) offered a sobering reminder, however, that robotics still remains largely the domain of industry: consumer markets may be getting lots of interest in terms of investment opportunity, but industrial and defense applications are still the driving force in terms of expenditures. Lopota speculated that a real breakthrough to mass markets will indeed occur, but only when we see robotic products that are simultaneously inexpensive and reliable – something that will happen as component parts become less expensive and more standardized. Lopota suggested that the need for standardization is especially acute in extreme environments like space, for example, where robotic systems must be able to interface with a variety of equipment built by different organizations without failure. He also said that R&D work currently being done in extreme robotics may help to drive standardization in robotics in general, but international cooperation will be needed to make this happen.

As head of the European Robotics group and the European Land Robot Trials (ELROB), and the driving force behind the new EURATHLON competition, Frank Schneider agreed with Lopota that defense remains one of the biggest markets for robotics, but he noted that the user in the defense market is very strong and able to tell industry what is needed; this is different in the civilian markets where end-users are less likely to have specific robotics expertise. Schneider suggested that competitions like EURATHLON – where the scenarios are designed in cooperation with civilian end-users such as firefighters or paramedics – are helping to bring more of a user-driven focus to industrial and academic R&D. This, combined with the standardization brought by industry, is helping robotics competitions to close the gap between research and commercialization.

More challenges on the road ahead

Schneider also noted, however, that he has observed the same mistakes being repeated since the competition started in 2006 (even by teams from the same universities), suggesting that, going forward, knowledge-exchange is a problem: “It seems like the questions are the same year after year,” and the cycle of information is lost as university students innovate, graduate and move on.

Sandini suggested that another obstacle to development is a tendency to conduct academic research on one-of-a-kind research platforms. While he agreed with Schneider’s overall view that robotics challenges are a good way of advancing robotics because they give every team the same constraints, he posited that common development platforms like the iCub make it easier to compare different solutions to the same problem. “It has the advantage of truly comparing the different solutions that people are producing,” said Sandini. “One of the plagues of robotics research is that many of the experiments are not reproducible because they are done on one-of-a-kind research platforms. We need to stretch the field so that what we do can be shared and compared. Only in this way can we advance.”

Grishin brought up another challenge: convincing young engineers to launch start-ups. “A fundamental problem that we have in hardware and especially in robotics is that a lot of people who were educated as hardware engineers are not working as hardware engineers – they are working in software,” he said. “As investors, we need to explain to people that they can start a hardware company, and that it’s a huge opportunity.” He also noted that while hardware hubs and hardware incubators can be very effective at supporting young entrepreneurs in robotics, there are too few of them: “There are probably more than 1,000 software incubators globally,” he said, “and I know of only three in hardware.”

Albert Efimov, Project Director of the IT Cluster at the Skolkovo Foundation echoed the issue of knowledge exchange and tech transfer as one of Russia’s key obstacles in moving robotics innovation forward. Skolkovo is a non-profit organization responsible for creating a new science and technology development centre in the Moscow suburb of Skolkovo, and its key mission is to act as a bridge between research and commercialization. Skolkovo is divided into five clusters (information technology, biomedical tehcnologies, energy efficiency, and space and nuclear), and robotics – which overlaps with all of these areas – presents both a challenge and an opportunity to the foundation: “Actual innovation lies in between, and robotics involves all the clusters at Skolkovo,” he said. “Our mission is to bring [these] parties together, otherwise everyone will sit in their clusters not talking to each other.” Efimov also speculated that Russian universities are reluctant to commercialize the robotics projects in their research portfolios because they are worried about losing their top researchers and students to industry.

Advice for Russia moving forward

1. Community building
   Like Efimov, Kidd and Sandini also underscored the need for Russia to facilitate community building.  “I think we all agree that in order to advance robotics we need more disciplines to be joined together,” Sandini said. “My suggestion would be to see how you can break the separation between the fields. For academia this means building more interdisciplinary research groups, and robotics is a unique area where this can be done.” Kidd, who currently serves on a science and technology advisory committee for the Hong Kong government, concurred: “There is a great opportunity for any government that can bring together all these pieces.”
2. Communication, promotion and an “open science” approach to research
   With community building goes communication. Schneider thought that Russia could do much more to let the world know about its robotics R&D: “I know so little about what is going on Russia. You do awesome stuff, but it’s so hard to find. I think one of your biggest problems is promotion.” Indeed, my personal experience as I was preparing for the panel was that it was difficult to find information about Russian robotics on the Internet, especially in English. Clearly top brass in Russia is aware of the communication issue, and working to change this: now in its second year, the Open Innovation Forum itself is meant to combat this problem, and this year has seen the launch of several robotics-centered promotional events including Skolkovo’s Robotics International Conference, an affiliated robotics challenge, and the Robotics Expo in Moscow this fall. In the small world of robotics investment, Dmitry Grishin is a major force for putting Russia on the entrepreneurial robotics map: his robotics investment fund has attracted a flurry of international attention since it was announced in 2012, and this is in no small part thanks to an effective publicity strategy that includes many speaking engagements and event sponsorships outside of Russia’s borders. However, time will tell if Russia as a whole, and its university R&D programs specifically, will be able to nurture a culture of openness and reach out to the global robotics community. In the words of Schneider: “You have to invest in open science and have the ability to travel and show your stuff in different countries. What’s behind a growing and prospering community? It’s innovation. And you can only sell your innovation when you are the best in your field and you can show that to other people.”
3. Leadership and excellence
   Citing his own country’s enthusiasm for technology, Park suggested that leadership is important when it comes to success in robotics. South Korea takes an active role in stimulating the uptake of robotics by its industry and citizenry alike: it was the first country to develop a charter of robot ethics, and it is currently investing heavily in “market pull” projects for robotics, such as the Robot Land theme park (it also has an ambitious plan to have a robot in every household by 2020). Park, who heads one of Korea’s centers of research excellence in medical robotics, also said that each country has its own strengths, and that Russia could do well to invest more in what it is already known for: robotics for search and rescue, space and defense.
4. Government funding vs. private investment
   It would appear that advice was split on the issue of government funding. Park and Lopota mentioned the importance of comprehensive government funding and investment in industry in order to stimulate a trickle-down effect, while Kidd and Grishin suggested that early stage seed funding could be an effective use of government funds, but that large scale funding should be left to private investors. Said Grishin: “I am skeptical of government helping to improve robotics. I believe it’s better if it’s done by a community of entrepreneurs … by markets, which are usually quicker and much more effective.”
5. Just do it.
   Grishin offered a fitting message to young Russian entrepreneurs as we concluded the panel: “It’s a simple recommendation: go and launch a robotics start-up right now.”

Watch the full 90-minute panel discussion here:

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• China takes long view in funding robotics, innovation
• Robot tourism coming soon to Korea: Masan Robot Land project finally breaks ground
• Swiss to invest almost CHF30 million in digital fabrication research over next 4 years
• Long view required to keep economic policy in step with developments in robotics

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

The bleak autumn Moscow day didn’t seem to have dampened the enthusiasm of the crowds of people making the journey to the 2013 Moscow Robotics (and advanced technologies) Expo http://robot-ex.ru/en at the Sokolniki Conference Centre.

• Home automation
• Hospitality/guide/remote presence
• Personal transport
• Education/learning toys/hobbyist
• 3D-printing

The Expo was well attended, by all ages, but there seemed to be the strongest interest from 18-30-year olds.

Russians people love being photographed when they are doing activities and I would recommend if you want to have a real hit when you exhibit in Russia to integrate this into your promotion in some way.

All loved the dancing robots! This display was set to traditional Russian songs, cause Gangham Style is just so done!

For those tired of walking and talking there was a beanbag and film area to chill out and enjoy Star Wars robot battles.

There was plenty local media and bloggers present giving entrepreneurs a chance to get their message out.

Solving public issues using robots, robots for business, research of humanoid robots and investing in robotics were some of the well attended talks given at the conference part of the Expo.

Home automation:

iClebo intelligent cleaning robot – iRobot Roomba has a strong retail presence in Moscow and represents a good market for competitors like iClebo to enter. Find out more at http://iclebo.com/english/

Windoro auto window cleaner – There seemed little interest for this product from visitors, unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to discuss the robot with the distributors. Find out more at http://www.windoro.co.uk/

Robomow lawn mower – was generating strong interest. Whilst the majority of Muscovites have no garden, many have a dacha (country house) that have gardens and turning up there to find tidy lawns will be a strong selling point. Find out more at http://www.robomow.com/en-USA/

The Bosch Indego robotic lawnmower. Despite having the largest stand at the show there was not a lot to see! More at http://www.bosch-indego.com/gb/en/

Nanosematics provides website customer support chatbots. Whilst they were demonstrating a home solution with their videos, their client list is heavily targeted at business. Find out more at http://nanosemantics.ru/

Hospitality/remote presence

r.bot were showing a range of hospitality, guide and telepresence robots. The smaller dome shaped robots were using Android based tablets as a display on the mobile ‘arm’. The drinks hospitality and remote presence robots (shown here) were very active around the stand. Note, there is a small wheel at the back; they are not a self-balancing (Segway type) robot. Find out more at http://rbot.com/

Wicron were showing a Nintendo wii-mote controlled remote presence robot that appeared well developed and robust in operation. Find out more at https://wicron.com/en They were also promoting MATE Mobile Application Technology Expo which will run in April 2014 in Moscow. More at http://www.mate-expo.ru/en

Segway Point provides Segway hires which appears quite popular in the Moscow parks in the summer. Find out more at http://segwaypoint.ru

IPS have developed a single wheel gyroscope balanced personal transport which was one of the stars of the show for me allowing quick mobility around a city then easy stowage under a desk or in a home cupboard. Portable and highly stable even with only one foot on, the reps could easily navigate through the busy show. Find out more at http://ips-shop.ru/

Skygadget – Skygadget is a drone distributor. The only product they had on display was the Parrot AR Drone and they have a very small selection of other drone products for sale. Find out more at http://skygadget.ru/

Always popular, always versatile, capable of some very technical projects, fischertechnik did not disappoint with the range of projects on display. Note the use of a Siemens PLC for control of this more complex ‘automation’ project. They were also demonstrating Arduino integration in other projects. Find out more at http://www.fischertechnik.de/

RobotBaza are a reseller of robotics and electronics education products. Their product range includes Lego Mindstorms, Arduino kits, fischertechnik and bioloid humanoid robots. Find out more at http://www.robotbaza.ru/

Trik provides a complete robotics and automation education system. Reminiscent of Mecanno they had a range of robot projects on display from diggers to self-balancing Segway style robots and a well developed software development environment. I also noticed some Trik t-shirts and products at Open Innovations 2013. Find out more at http://www.trikset.com/#!home-en/c12um

Examen Technolab – They produce their own plastic and metal construction sets including robotics kits and are also a reseller of education products including Bioloid. Find out more at http://examen-technolab.ru/

 

Hobby lab are a reseller of a wide range of electronics and education kits. Find out more at http://www.hobbylab.ru/

 

I’m not sure if these guys were hobbyists or students but their robots showed a lot of ingenuity and passion.

Printers 3D provide 3D printing services as well as selling printers and consumables. Find out more at http://printers3d.ru/

Printers 3D provide 3D printing services as well as selling printers and consumables. Find out more at http://printers3d.ru/