Venture capital firms are eager to allocate money into robotics firms in a wide range of industries from shipping to healthcare as more automation became a focus during the global pandemic. In 2021, funding globally for robotics and drone companies rose to $14.9 billion, according to PitchBook. The amount of funding raised for robotics in 2022 has been steady. By January, VCs allocated $560 million of funding into robotics startups, excluding the round for Wandelbots, a German industrial robotics company that raised $84 million for its Series C round in January. The funding for the company's no-code platform came from U.S. investor Insight Partners, which led the round and was also supported by its existing backers - Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Microsoft Corporation Report, 83North, Next47, Paua, Atlantic Labs and EQT.

Over the last 6-12 months, the demand has really skyrocketed such that we're barely keeping up with the demand for people wanting to implement robots in their hospitals. That's the reason why we're raising this round of funding, expanding the team, and expanding our ability to capitalize on that demand. A couple of years ago, if we were working with a hospital it was because they had some special funds set aside for innovation or they had a CTO or a CIO that had a background in robotics, but it certainly wasn't the first thing that every hospital CIO was thinking about. Now that has completely changed. We're getting cold outreach on our website from CIOs of hospitals saying "I need to develop a robotic strategy for our hospital and I want to learn about your solution."

There are a few must-attend technology conferences, even when they are held virtually. One of those is Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference more commonly known as GTC. While holding the conference virtually does limit the interaction with the broad array of attendees from industry, government, and academia, it still provides an invaluable glimpse into advancements in accelerated processing technology, graphics, and artificial intelligence (AI). According to the agenda, 2022 GTC will feature just shy of 1,000 sessions, including keynotes, technical tutorials, panel discussions, and roundtable discussions with technical experts. There will also be demonstrations, vendor meetings, and other special events.

This week you'll be able to listen to the talks of Jonathan Hurst (Professor of Robotics at Oregon State University, and Chief Technology Officer at Agility Robotics) and Andrea Thomaz (Associate Professor of Robotics at the University of Texas at Austin, and CEO of Diligent Robotics) as part of this series that brings you the plenary and keynote talks from the IEEE/RSJ IROS2020 (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems). Jonathan's talk is in the topic of humanoids, while Andrea's is about human-robot interaction. Bio: Jonathan W. Hurst is Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Agility Robotics, and Professor and co-founder of the Oregon State University Robotics Institute. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.S. and Ph.D. in robotics, all from Carnegie Mellon University. His university research focuses on understanding the fundamental science and engineering best practices for robotic legged locomotion and physical interaction.

As technology continues to revolutionise the way we live and work beyond the pandemic, here are some early-stage companies innovating in the IoT space. The World Economic Forum (WEF) Technology Pioneers of 2021 represent a collection of 100 early to growth-stage companies identified as trailblazers working with new technologies and innovations. This year's list includes start-ups shaking up data and cybersecurity and blazing a trail in blockchain and digital assets. Here, we take a look at the IoT and smart city start-ups on the list, covering innovators that are finding advanced tech solutions to a burgeoning list of complex challenges in an increasingly digitised post-pandemic world. Founded by Andrea Thomaz and Vivian Chu in 2017, Diligent Robotics is a female-led early-stage company that makes AI-powered robot assistants for healthcare workers.

Research is all about being the first, but commercialization is all about repeatability, not just many times but every single time. This was one of the key takeaways from the Transitioning Research From Academia to Industry panel during the National Robotics Initiative Foundational Research in Robotics PI Meeting on March 10 2021. I had the pleasure of moderating a discussion between Lael Odhner, Co-Founder of RightHand Robotics, Andrea Thomaz, Co-Founder/CEO of Diligent Robotics and Assoc Prof at UTexas Austin, and Kel Guerin, Co-Founder/CIO of READY Robotics. RightHand Robotics, Diligent Robotics and READY Robotics are young robotics startups that have all transitioned from the ICorps program and SBIR grant funding into becoming venture backed robotics startups. RightHand Robotics was founded in 2014 and is a Boston based company that specializes in robotics manipulation.

Artificial Intelligence has already become a widespread technology, solving a large number of tedious tasks of enterprises. Looking at its capabilities, this year marked the biggest year in funding for AI ventures yet. The Q2 of 2019 saw a total investment of US$7.4 billion in AI startups, largely going to transportation and healthcare companies. Let's have a look at the top 10 AI investments that took place in October 2019. Brightfield, a New York City-based AI and Big Data analytics company, optimizes contract labor spend and program performance for employers, MSPs, and staffing firms earlier this month received US$53 million in early-stage funding round.

Artificial Intelligence has already become a widespread technology, solving a large number of tedious tasks of enterprises. Looking at its capabilities, this year marked the biggest year in funding for AI ventures yet. The Q2 of 2019 saw a total investment of US$7.4 billion in AI startups, largely going to transportation and healthcare companies. Let's have a look at the top 10 AI investments that took place in October 2019. Brightfield, a New York City-based AI and Big Data analytics company, optimizes contract labor spend and program performance for employers, MSPs, and staffing firms earlier this month received US$53 million in early-stage funding round.

Diligent Robotics, maker of an autonomous robot assistant for hospitals, has raised $3 million in seed funding. The raise was headed by True Ventures and Ubiquity Ventures, as well as Next Coast Ventures, Capital Factory, Pathbreaker Ventures, Boom Capital, Grit Ventures and other unnamed angel investors. This adds to another $2.1 million round announced back in the beginning of 2018, as well as a $725,000 National Science Foundation grant. This week's funding news was complemented with an announcement that the startup's hospital robot, called Moxi, is exiting beta testing and has entered market with its first official rollout in a Texas Hospital. While Diligent Robotics' broad aim is to develop robotic assistants for a range of chores or activities, the company has so far focused on healthcare use cases for its technology with Moxi.

Diligent Robotics's Moxi is a robot created by Andrea Thomaz (a former robotics professor at UT Austin and Georgia Tech's Socially Intelligent Machines Lab) and Vivian Chu (one of Thomaz's former grad students); they funded by a National Science Foundation grant to create a robotic nursing aide that is designed to do routine, non-human-interaction chores for nurses with a minimum of effort from nurses. For example, when a patient is discharged, a Moxi can fetch and deliver an "admission bucket" (a standard package of supplies for a new patient) automatically; some nurses in a limited trial say they never saw Moxi undertake this chore, but rather simply found that every recently vacated room had an admission bucket waiting at the appropriate time. The design is meant to relieve nurses of mechanical, robotic tasks (errands) and free them up to concentrate on care and humans. After four one-month beta trials, the company says Moxi robots do that very well, but they were surprised by the affection that both nurses and patients expressed for the robots, which was so intense that the technicians began to schedule an hour-long "social lap," in which the robot wanders around and makes heart-emoji eyes at patients. The physical design of Moxi reflects Thomaz's "Socially Intelligent Machines" research; they are designed to be cute and nonthreatening, and to give social cues that humans intuitively grasp, like looking in the direction they're moving.