Giorgio Metta is director of the iCub Facility department at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) where he coordinates the development of the iCub robotic platform/project. He holds a MSc cum laude (1994) and PhD (2000) in electronic engineering both from the University of Genoa. From 2001 to 2002 he was postdoctoral associate at the MIT AI-Lab. He was previously with the University of Genoa and since 2012 Professor of Cognitive Robotics at the University of Plymouth (UK). He is deputy director of IIT delegate to the international relations and external funding. In this role he is member of the board of directors of euRobotics aisbl, the European reference organization for robotics research. Giorgio Metta’s research activities are in the fields of biologically motivated and humanoid robotics and, in particular, in developing humanoid robots that can adapt and learn from experience. Giorgio Metta is author of approximately 250 scientific publications. He has been working as principal investigator and research scientist in about a dozen international as well as national funded projects.

Marco Prata is co-founder and CTO at Seed Robotics, a company specialising in Robotics solutions for Academics and Research.

Born and raised in the south of Portugal, Marco moved to Lisbon to study Electrotechnical Engineering, majoring in Control and Robotics at Instituto Superior Técnico.

He was involved in entrepreneurial projects including harvesting offshore wind energy after which he focused in Robotics.

For the past years he's designed several robot solutions including (very) tall humanoid robots, rovers, manipulators, and even 3D printers.

At the age of 34, he's CTO at Seed Robotics, leveraging his experience in creating new and exciting ways to use Robots and advancing the state of the art.

Links

http://www.seedrobotics.com/

Pedro Ramilo is co-founder and Director at Seed Robotics, a company specialising in Robotics solutions for Academics and Research.

With a deep passion for technology, he started programming at the age of 12, after finding a manual of IBM Basic at home (the green manual that came with the first IBM PCs).

At the age of 32, he’s collected vast experience in management roles. He’s led Robotics projects for consumer and research, and ran International Business for one of the key players in the industry. He is constantly seeking new ways to meet academia and research needs.

At Seed Robotics he heads the brand’s entire customer facing aspects, ensuring it meets (and exceeds) customers’ expectations, delivering value and unparalleled innovation.

Manfred Hild is Professor of Digital Systems at the Beuth University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Germany. Prior to that he held positions as Visiting Researcher at the SONY Computer Science Laboratory in Paris and as leader of the Neurorobotics Research Laboratory (NRL) in Berlin. He studied psychology and mathematics at the University of Konstanz where he received his diploma and switched then to computer science where he received his PhD in 2008 at Humboldt University in Berlin. His main research fields are sensorimotor control, humanoid robotics, and the design of distributed systems, with a focus on dynamical systems theory and recurrent neural networks.

Donald is an entrepreneur. He was CEO and one of the original founders of Epic Group plc, which established itself as the leading company in the UK e-learning market, floated on the Stock Market in 1996 and sold in 2005. Describing himself as ‘free from the tyranny of employment’, he now has a foot in two camps, one as an investor and Board member of PlanB learning, WiQi, LearningPool, Cogbooks, the other in the public sector as a Trustee for the University for Industry, City & Guilds and Deputy Chair of Brighton Arts Festival & Dome. He has been involved in consulting and implementing online learning in schools, FE, HE, corporate and government.

Donald has been involved in film, games, web, mobile, MOOCs, Oculus Rift and won many awards for the design and implementation of online learning. He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences, having delivered talks in the US, Europe, Far East, Middle East and Africa, and won several ‘Best speaker’ awards … also a regular (and controversial) blogger on online learning!

Links

http://www.planblearning.com/Bio/