Speakers in tonight's Society, Robots and Us at 6pm PST Tuesday Feb 23 include Henry Evans, mute quadriplegic and founder of Robots4Humanity and Aaron Edsinger, founder of Hello Robot. We'll also being talking about robots for people with disabilities with Disability Advocate Adriana Mallozi, founder of Puffin Innovations and Daniel Seita, who is a deaf roboticist. The event is free and open to the public. As a result of a sudden stroke, Henry Evans turned from being a Silicon Valley tech builder into searching for technologies and robots that would improve his life, and the life of his family and caregivers, as the founder of Robots4Humanity. Since then Henry has shaved himself with the help of the PR2 robot, and spoken on the TED stage with Chad Jenkins in a Suitable Tech Beam.

Silicon Valley Robotics is pleased to announce that we are a Connector organization for the E-ROBOT Prize, and other DOE competitions on the American-Made Network. There is \$2 million USD available in up to ten prizes for Phase One of the E-ROBOT Prize, and \$10 million USD available in Phase Two. Individuals or teams can sign up for the competition, as the online platform offers opportunities to connect with potential team members, as do competition events organized by Connector organizations. Please cite Silicon Valley Robotics as your Connector organization, when entering the competition. Silicon Valley Robotics will be hosting E-Robot Prize information and connection events as part of our calendar of networking and Construction Robotics Network events.

If robotics is the technology of the 21st century, rather than biotech, then we have some serious work to do. This week marks the'beginning of the end' of the coronavirus pandemic as a vaccine is deployed in the US. The Wall St Journal recently profiled the incredible effort of Pfizer and BioNTech who pioneered a novel Messenger RNA (mRNA) approach, and got it in production in a tenth to a quarter of the normal vaccine development time. It undoubtedly takes a team, but the WSJ article "How Pfizer delivered a COVID vaccine in record time" highlights the efforts of two men, CEO Albert Bourla and manufacturing chief Mike McDermott, and one woman, head of Pfizer's vaccine research Dr Kathrin Jansen, in this achievement. And the WSJ feature makes more fuss about CEO Albert Bourla's Greek heritage than about Dr Kathrin Jansen's femaleness.

The All India Robotics Association (AIRA), a not-for-profit trade body of robotic enterprises, was launched here on Tuesday to make India the global leader in robotics production and technologies. Harshitha Puvvala, Founder and President of AIRA, said the body, the first in India, will work to support, nurture and create robotics business opportunities in the country. The other goals are to create and standardise robotics education curriculum, standardised design technologies for robot designing, make India a global robotics manufacturer, and establish a world-class robotics centre and museum in Hyderabad, all with a single goal to create a business export path of $350 million by 2022. At the launch event, Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, government of Telangana, said that during the lockdown many manufacturers using industrial robots have overcome manpower shortage and continued uninterrupted production. The power of robots is also being increased by adding Artificial Intelligence, because of which robots are also becoming intelligent now, Jayesh said.

OAKLAND, California, Dec. 14, 2020 /Press Release/ -- Silicon Valley Robotics, the world's largest cluster of innovation in robotics, announces the inaugural'Good Robot' Industry Awards, celebrating the robotics, automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) that will help us solve global challenges. These 52 companies and individuals have all contributed to innovation that will improve the quality of our lives, whether it's weed-free pesticide-free farming, like FarmWise or Iron Ox; supporting health workers and the elderly manage health care treatment regimes, like Catalia Health or Multiply Labs; or reimagining the logistics industry so that the transfer of physical goods becomes as efficient as the transfer of information, like Cruise, Embark, Matternet and Zipline. The categories Innovation, Vision and Commercialization represent the stages robotics companies go through, firstly with an innovative technology or product, then with a vision to change the world (and occasionally the investment to match), and finally with real evidence of customer traction. The criteria for our Commercialization Award is achieving $1 million in revenue, which is a huge milestone for a startup building a new invention. Tessa Lau, Founder and CEO of Dusty Robotics, an Innovation Awardee said "We're almost there. Dusty Robotics' FieldPrinter automates the painstaking, time-consuming process of marking building plans in the field, replacing a traditional process using measuring tape and chalk lines that hasn't changed in 5000 years. The company's vision of creating robot-powered tools for the modern construction workforce resonates strongly with commercial construction companies. Dusty's robot fleet is now in production, producing highly accurate layouts in record time on every floor of two multi-family residential towers going up in San Francisco. The SVR'Good Robot' Industry Awards also highlight diverse robotics companies. In our Visionary Category, Zoox is the first billion dollar company led by an African-American woman, Aicha Evans, and Robust AI shows diversity at every level of the organization. Diversity of thought will be critical as Robust AI tackles the challenge of building a cognitive engine for robotics that incorporates common sense reasoning. "Robotics and AI will shape the next century in the same way the Industrial revolution shaped the 20th century.

Robots are rolling out into the real world and we need to meet the emerging challenges in responsible fashion but one that doesn't block innovation. At the recent ARM Developers Summit 2020 I shared my suggestions for five practical steps that we could undertake at a regional, national or global level as part of the Five Laws of Robotics presentation (below). The Five Laws of Robotics are drawn from the EPSRC Principles of Robotics, first developed in 2010 and a living document workshopped by experts across many relevant disciplines. These five principles are practical and concise, embracing the majority of principles expressed across a wide range of ethics documents. I will explain in more detail.

What are the main reasons that robotics companies and startups fail? Is it the technology or is it the business? Fresh Consulting analyzed significant industry case studies from Rethink Robotics to iRobot for their whitepaper "Why Robotics Companies Fail," and launched it on June 11 at a panel discussion moderated by James Dietrich, from Fresh Consulting, with guest speakers Aaron Prather, Senior Advisor for the Technology Research and Planning Team at FedEx Express; Andra Keay, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics and startup accelerator advisor, and Eric Klein, Partner and Founder at Lemnos Labs. In a lively discussion, the speakers weighed in on what key factors for success or failure were most likely in their experience. Andra Keay believes that lack of business fundamentals is the most critical error a young company faces.

Jasmine Lawrence works with the Everyday Robots project from Alphabet's X moonshot factory. She thinks there's a lot of unanswered ethical questions about how to use robots and how to think of them: Are they slaves or tools? Do they replace or complement people? As a product manager, she said, confronting some of those questions can be frightening, and it brings up the question of bias and the responsibility of the creator. Lawrence said she wants to be held accountable for the good and bad things she builds.

Wired Magazine recently called for us to, post pandemic, "ditch our tech enabled tools of social distancing". But are our telepresence robots creating emotional distancing or are they actually improving our emotional lives. This week in our weekly "COVID-19, robots and us" discussion with experts, we're looking at the topic of virtual presence and emotional contact as well as many other practical ways that robotics can make a difference in pandemic times. Robin Murphy, Raytheon Professor at Texas A&M University and founder of the field of Rescue Robotics, was involved in the very first use of robots in a disaster scenario in 9/11. Since then she's been involved in multiple disaster responses worldwide, including the Ebola outbreak in 2014-2016.

Silicon Valley Robotics and the CITRIS People and Robots Initiative are hosting a weekly "COVID-19, robots and us" online discussion with experts from the robotics and health community on Tuesdays at 7pm (California time – PDT). Helpful Engineering is a rapidly growing global network created to design, source and execute projects that can help people suffering from the COVID-19 crisis worldwide. The Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies Group is a rapidly growing Facebook group formed to evaluate, design, validate, and source the fabrication of open source emergency medical supplies around the world, given a variety of local supply conditions. Andra Keay, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics and Visiting Scholar at CITRIS People and Robots Initiative will act as moderator. Beau Ambur, Outreach, Design and Technology Lead for Kickstarter will be coordinating technology for us.