Italian municipalities are keen to adopt robotics technology

Can you imagine robots to become a part of our daily life? They could drive the bus taking us to work, clean the street in front of or homes, sort the trash, guide tourists and be useful in our towns and cities in many ways we can hardly imagine today. What sounds like a future scenario could become reality, because municipalities will play a significant role in robotics development as drivers and buyers of robotics technology. However, nowadays public bodies often still lack the knowledge how they could benefit from using robots for daily tasks.

To bridge this gap, the Fondazione IFEL has organised a webinar with nearly 100 participants to present current and future opportunities in robotics to Italian municipalities. IFEL was founded in 2006 by the Italian National Association of Municipalities (ANCI) and supports the Italian towns and cities on topics like accounting and local economy. During the webinar our colleages from the Technical University of Munich, Francesco Maurelli and Federica Pepponi, outlined how urban challenges might be solved by using robotics technology. One important example is certainly our funding for the development of robots for sewer inspection and geriatric assessment through our Public end-user Driven Technological Innovation (PDTI) scheme.

For everyone who missed the webinar or would like to know more, a recording of it is available here (in Italian).