Smart Regions with Smart Robots

Smart robots are becoming more and more useful and can greatly help people in everyday lives, in private and professional spheres. Europe is a leader in this sector and cannot afford to miss opportunities offered by robotics. To take full advantage of it, the European Commission is determined to join forces at all levels, from regional to European level.
On May 10, the European Commission and the European Committee of the Regions hosted a conference to inform the regional authorities how their local economy and society can benefit from the services offered by robotics technologies and to learn how to make it happen. The conference brought together about 200 robotics experts and local, regional, and national authorities who discussed how to develop regional innovation strategies based on robotics.

Some of the best experts in Europe presented state-of-the-art robotics applications, showcased success stories of some regional initiatives, informed about the funding possibilities and explored ways to join forces with other regions. One additional important objective of the conference was also to make the robotics community meet with their respective local, regional, national authorities, to discuss their local strategy and ecosystems, building on their strength.

At the event, ECHORD++ partners Paolo Dario (SSSA), Chris Melhuish (BRL), Alberto Sanfeliu (UPC) and Christophe Leroux (CEA) presented success stories from Tuscany, Bristol, Barcelona and Paris while PDTI partner Jesús Gonzalez presented the drone used for the project ARSI – Aerial Robot for Sewer Inspection. And finally, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya showed their mobile robot TIBI (see picture).

We are proud to have played such an important role at the conference and would like to thank the organisers for making such a fruitful event possible.

Click here to see more pictures of the event.

Image copyright: European Union / Nuno Rodrigues. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).