Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto presented keys to the city to Carnegie Mellon University's Red Whittaker and Andrew Moore on Friday, calling the two "leaders of the fourth industrial revolution." Peduto, who will leave office at the end of the year after serving two terms as mayor and a career in city hall, said it has been an honor to work with Whittaker and Moore throughout much of the 2000s as Pittsburgh emerged as a hotbed of tech talent and grew its economy around robotics, autonomy, computer science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. The mayor described Whittaker and Moore as humble men who love Pittsburgh and chose to stay in the city to train top-level scientists and develop transformative technologies. They created new industries that not only changed Pittsburgh but changed the world," Peduto said. "They changed Pittsburgh beyond its economy and brought it back to the world stage."

A student-led team of robotics experts will participate in the penultimate event next week for an international challenge that could pave the way for future breakthrough innovations in the world of autonomous vehicles. It should, given Pittsburgh universities' history of performing well in challenges such as the DARPA Grand Challenge, DARPA Urban Challenge or the 2012-2015 Robotics Challenge. But this time it's not a Carnegie Mellon University-led team that is preparing – it's a student group of roboticists from the University of Pittsburgh readying itself for next week's Indy Autonomous Challenge finals on October 23rd. The goal of the challenge is a race around the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway in self-driving cars – the grand prize of $1 million is up for grabs. Leading the team is Nayana Suvarna, the head of Pitt's Robotics & Automation Society (RAS), a robotics club at the school that pursues robotics education opportunities (the school doesn't have a formal robotics program).

The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility. There are 40.3 million victims of human trafficking globally, according to the International Labor Organization. Marinus Analytics, a startup based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, hopes to make a dent in that number. The company's mission is to "serve those working on the frontlines of public safety by developing technology for them to disrupt human trafficking, child abuse, and cyber fraud." For its achievements, Marinus won $500,000 as part of its third-place ranking in the 2021 IBM Watson AI XPRIZE competition.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University helped compile and will have access to the largest collection of point-of-view videos in the world. These videos could enable artificial intelligence to understand the world from a first-person point of view and unlock a new wave of virtual assistants, augmented reality and robotics. Until now, most of the video used to train computer vision models came from the third-person point of view. The first-person, or egocentric, video included in this collection will allow researchers to train computer vision systems to see the world as humans do. "For the first time, we'll have enough data to be able to teach computers to see what we see," said Kris Kitani, an associate research professor in the Robotics Institute who led CMU's efforts to collect data.

Ying Zhang took charge of fun activities during his time at Carnegie Mellon University's Language Technologies Institute. It was the early 2000s, and the institute was new, small and close-knit. Zhang, better known as Joy, became fast friends with his fellow LTI students. Joy organized movie nights and trips skiing, hiking and rafting. He even hosted a party in his tiny apartment to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers win the 2006 Super Bowl.

Five graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science have received Siebel Scholars awards for 2022. "Every year, the Siebel Scholars continue to impress me with their commitment to academics and influencing future society. This year's class is exceptional, and once again represents the best and brightest minds from around the globe who are advancing innovations in healthcare, artificial intelligence, financial services and more," said Thomas M. Siebel, chairman of the Siebel Scholars Foundation. "It is my distinct pleasure to welcome these students into this ever-growing, lifelong community, and I personally look forward to seeing their impact and contributions unfold." Ahuja is a Ph.D. candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) whose research focuses on machine learning and sensing.

Engaging students through interactive activities, discussions, feedback and AI-enhanced technologies resulted in improved academic performance compared to traditional lectures, lessons or readings, faculty from Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute concluded after collecting research into active learning. The research also found that effective active learning methods use not only hands-on and minds-on approaches, but also hearts-on, providing increased emotional and social support. Interest in active learning grew as the COVID-19 pandemic challenged educators to find new ways to engage students. Schools and teachers incorporated new technologies to adapt, while students faced negative psychological effects of isolation, restlessness and inattention brought on by quarantine and remote learning. The pandemic made it clear that traditional approaches to education may not be the best way to learn, but questions persisted about what active learning is and how best to use it to teach and engage and excite students.

Despite one of Team Explorer's ground robots returning to the garage with bent parts and covered in mud, the team was proud of how it performed during the final run of DARPA's SubT Challenge. "This one drove off a cliff," said Matt Travers, one of the team's co-leads, pointing to the smallest ground robot. "But I think it did so in a very valiant way. The team sent in eight robots during the one-hour run. Three drones launched from the start gate and one from the back of a ground robot.

Researchers in Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science are studying how humans organize their days and how they react to changes in their schedules to help build better artificial intelligence tools. Students have teamed up with Stephanie Rosenthal, an assistant teaching professor in the Computer Science Department, to work on the project through Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship grants. This past summer, Elchanan Haas, a junior studying computer science, built on previous work to create problem-solving strategies that mimic and ultimately improve on human decision-making. "This could someday be adapted in a number of ways," Haas said. "Delivery companies are using algorithms to schedule their car fleets, but this complex mixture -- pickups, deliveries, appointments, tasks -- there's nothing on the robotics market today able to consider and efficiently schedule all of those activities at the same time."

Howie Choset is a robotics professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a serial entrepreneur. With his students, Howie has formed several companies including Medrobotics, for surgical systems, Hebi Robotics, for modular robots, and Bito Robotics for autonomous guided vehicles.   Further, Choset co-lead the formation of the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, which is $250m national institute advancing both technology development and education for robotics in manufacturing. He is aksi a founding Editor of the journal ‘Science Robotics.   In this conversation, Howie and Aaron discuss the series of startups he has founded, how to delegate & develop teams, and the patience required to see technological innovation turn from idea to reality.     Howie Choset’s Challenge; Have good students actively teach students that are further behind. Go into fields that seem too difficult. Find applications for snake robots.   Connect with  Howie Choset   If you liked this interview, check out where we discuss raising billions of dollars to develop self-driving cars.   Text Me What You Think of This Episode 412-278-7680 Underwritten by Piper Creative Piper Creative makes creating podcasts, vlogs, and videos easy.    How? .   We work with Fortune 500s, medium-sized companies, and entrepreneurs.   Follow Piper as we grow Subscribe on | | |