-------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Participation for the IEEE-IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation (IERA 2007) Tuesday, April 10, 2007, Rome, Italy (co-located with IEEE ICRA Workshops & Tutorials) Early registration ends Saturday, March 10, 2007! Webpage: Through ICRA: http://www.icra07.org/main.html?topic=other_ev&item=2 or IEEE-RAS: http://www.ieee-ras.org/industrial/iera.php or directly: http://isrc.skku.ac.kr/~IAB -------------------------------------------------------------- The IERA'07 Forum aims at promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as synergy between academia and industry, in the robotics and automation community. It is held in conjunction with the IEEE ICRA 2007 International Conference on Robotics and Automation. IERA’07 is organized by both the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (IEEE-RAS) and consists of: * IEEE-IFR Invention & Entrepreneurship Award in Robotics and Automation Plenary Lectures and Award Ceremony: - KR 3 SI - Safe human-robot interaction without fences, Dr. Peter Heiligensetzer, MRK-Systeme GmbH, Augsburg, Germany - The SCHUNK Dexterous Hand (SDH), Dr. Matthias Haag, SCHUNK GmbH & Co. KG, Lauffen, Germany - Reaching the unreachable with snake-arm robots, Dr. Rob Buckingham, OC Robotics, Bristol, UK - Nesbot(TM) - Investigating New Technologies and Business Models in the Food and Beverage Distribution, Dr. Nicola Tomatis, BlueBotics SA, Lausanne, Switzerland - AutoStrad(R): An Autonomous Straddle Carrier for Movement of Shipping Containers, Prof. Hugh Durrant-Whyte, ACFR, The University of Sydney, Australia - Quattro - A new robot manipulator for ultra-high-speed packaging applications, Prof. François Pierrot, LIRMM, CNRS, Univ. Montpellier 2, France * Innovation and Entrepreneurship Workshop with six invited talks and concluding panel discussion: - World robotics statistics and forecasts, Gudrun Litzenberger, Director, IFR Statistical Department, hosted by VDMA Robotics + Automation, Frankfurt, Germany - The future of industrial and service robotics (from an entrepreneurs perspective), Bernd Liepert, CEO, KUKA Roboter GmbH, Augsburg, Germany - Fostering Industrial Automation in Europe: ManuFuture perspective and the 7th Framework Programme, Prof. Dr. Francesco Jovane, Director, ITIA-CNR, Milano, Italy - The future of robotics (from a research perspective), Prof. Dr. Henrik Christensen, Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA - Enhancing the robotics industry in Europe: Robotics R&D in the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme, Dr. Colette Maloney, DG INFSO, CEC, Luxemburg - METI's policies for enhancing the robotics industries in Japan, Dr. Hiroshi Tsuchiya, Industrial Machinery Division, METI, Japan On behalf of the organizing committee Rainer Bischoff KUKA Roboter GmbH Augsburg, Germany Rainer.Bischoff@kuka-roboter.de www.kuka.com