"Fearless Girl should provide the spark to inspire more female engineers", writes Elizabeth Croft, Dean and Faculty of Engineering at Monash University. "Girls are natural engineers, highly capable in maths and physics. We need to show them that these tools can be used to design a better world.So far, we've done a poor job of communicating to girls the very powerful impact they can make through an engineering career." Croft continues, providing us with the inspiration to introduce the second of our new series of Women in Robotics Updates, featuring Elizabeth Croft, Helen Greiner and Heather Knight from our first "25 women in robotics you need to know about" list in 2013. There are 180 more stories on our 2013 to 2020 lists.

Less than 100 years from now, robots will be friendly, useful participants in our homes and workplaces, predicts UBC mechanical engineering professor and robotics expert Elizabeth Croft. We will be living in a world of Wall-Es and Rosies, walking-and-talking avatars, smart driverless cars and automated medical assistants. But much work remains before robots will truly be integrated into our daily lives. In this short Q&A, Croft lays out the rules for engagement between humans and robots and explains why it's crucial to get this aspect right. What role will robots play in our lives in the future?