RoboBusiness 2025 is finally here! The premier event for developers and suppliers of commercial robots will include over 60 speakers, a startup workshop, the annual Pitchfire competition, and over 100 exhibitors on the show floor.
The show kicks off at 9:30 a.m. PT with a keynote talk from Deepu Talla, the vice president of robotics and edge AI at NVIDIA. His talk, “Physical AI for the New Era of Robotics,” will be in the main theater. Talla will discuss how NVIDIA is accelerating the industry’s transition to physical AI.
Talla’s keynote will be followed by a short networking break and then by a keynote panel, “Lessons Learned From the First Humanoid Deployments,” at 10:30 a.m. This talk will include Jim Fan, the director of AI and a distinguished scientist at NVIDIA; Pras Velagapudi, chief technology officer at Agility Robotics; and Mike Oitzman, senior editor at The Robot Report.
At 10:00 a.m., the RoboBusiness show floor will open. There, you can find the Engineering Theater, a networking lounge, the Startup Showcase, the MassRobotics Startup Alley, and the KAIST Korean Pavilion. If you’re interested in picking up lunch, you can find the food court at the back of the expo hall.
The day will close with the RoboBusiness Networking Reception from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on the second floor Pre-function & Terrace.
Day 1 breakout sessions
Breakout sessions will kick off at 11:30 a.m. Today’s RoboBusiness breakout talk schedule is:
- Building the Future in Asia: Singapore as a Hub for Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics: This session will start at 11:30 a.m. in Room 206. Panelists will include Chloe Chong, the regional director of Americas at Singapore EDB; Lionel Lim, the vice president and head of technology hardware and equipment at Singapore EDB; Kai Xin Thia, the head of AI and data analytics at Group Technology Office, ST Engineering; and Desmond Tung, the SGP OFS IM Solution engineering manager at Agilent Technologies.
- Evolution of Sensors for Agrobotics: This panel is at 11:30 a.m. in Room 212. It will feature Maharajan Veerabahu, co-founder and vice president at e-con Systems; Charlie Anderson, the CEO of Burro; Katie Bradford, founder and CEO of Rotate8; Ben Chostner, an advisor on product and company strategy in agriculture; and Russell Nickerson, the partnership engagement liaison at MassRobotics.
- How Multi-Model Decision Agents Improve Performance, Safety, Scale: Robert Sun, a founding engineer at Dexterity, will present at 11:30 a.m. in Room 203/204.
- Humanoids for Real Applications: Mastering Safety and Performance: Nikolai Ensslen, the founder and CEO of Synapticon, will speak at 11:30 a.m. in Room 209/210.
- Integrated Actuators for Next-Gen Robotics: Power Density Meets Design Freedom: This session, led by Marcel Almonte, a mechatronics applications engineer at Harmonic Drive, will start at 11:30 a.m. in Room 207.
- Lessons Learned from Successful (and Failed) Robotics Projects: Dorota Shortell, the CEO of Simplexity Product Development, will share her experiences at 11:30 a.m. in Room 201.
- Advancements in Humanoid Actuation: This session with Jordan Schaeffer, a strategic business development engineer at Novanta, will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Room 212.
- Building Vision Models Faster with Synthetic Data: Brian Geisel, the CEO of Geisel Software & Symage, will explore this topic at 1:30 p.m. in Room 207.
- How AI Enhances ABB’s Robot Performance: Thomas-Tianwei Wang, the lead AI application engineer at ABB Robotics, will start this session at 1:30 p.m. in Room 203/204.
- Startup Boot Camp Part 1: Basics & Best Practices: This panel discussion will start at 1:30 p.m. in Room 206. It will feature John Lanza, a partner at Foley Hoag LLC; Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations of MassRobotics, Jennifer Audeh, a partner at Foley Hoag; and Marita McGinn, director of the MassRobotics Accelerator.
- The Rise of Mobile Manipulation: Jan Zizka, co-founder and CEO of Brightpick, will share insights at 1:30 p.m. in Room 201.
- Advancing Human-Robot Collaboration Through Natural Language AI: At 2:30 p.m. in Room 201, see Han-Pang Chiu, the technical director at the Center for Vision Technologies’ Vision and Robotics Laboratory at SRI.
- Challenges of Building Construction Robots: This panel at 2:30 p.m. in Room 212 will include Mike Oitzman, senior editor at The Robot Report; Ali Raja, the managing director of automation for industries at ABB Robotics; Kevin Albert, the CEO and co-founder at Canvas; and James Emerick, co-founder and CEO of Cosmic Robotics.
- Integrating Behavioral Science into Humanoid Design: Ram Devarajulu, the VP and head of robotics at North America at Cambridge Consultants, will speak at 2:30 p.m. in Room 209/210.
- Protecting Innovation in Robotics: IP Strategies that Work: This talk will start at 2:30 p.m. in Room 206. It will include observations from Roman Fayerberg, a shareholder and patent attorney at Greenberg Traurig; Chase Olle, the CEO and founder at Robot on Rails; and Kartik Tiwari, the co-founder and CTO at Andromeda Surgical.
- Sim2Real Reinforcement Learning: Training Robots for the Real World: At 2:30 p.m. in Room 203/204, this panel will feature experts Ken Goldberg, the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at UC Berkeley, and Jeff Mahler, the co-founder and CTO at Ambi Robotics.
- A Comprehensive Tour of the Modern Surgical Robot Suite: This session will start at 4:00 p.m. in Room 207. It will include James Davison, the VP of engineering at Kollmorgen, and Yoshi Umeno, an industry manager of global medical & robotics at Kollmorgen.
- Applying Lessons from the World’s Largest Autonomous Mining Deployment to Other Markets: Mel Torrie, the CEO at Autonomous Solutions Inc., will talk at 4:00 p.m. in Room 212.
- From Teleop to Autonomy: A Framework for Humanoid Surgical Robots: Michael Yip, an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, affiliate professor of Computer Science, and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at UC San Diego, will present at 4:00 p.m. in Room 209/210.
- Robotics Startup Boot Camp Part 2: International Growth – Meet the Founders: This panel, at 4:00 p.m. in Room 206, will include Marita McGinn, the director of the MassRobotics Accelerator; Saumik Biswas, founder, CEO, and president of Tenomix; Natalya Lopareva, the co-founder and CEO at Algorized; and Jeongseok Jay Yu, a partner at Foley Hoag.
- The Generalization Gap: Why Physical AI Needs Smarter Data Curation: Benji Barash, the co-founder and CEO of Roboto, will start this session at 4:00 p.m. in Room 203/204.
Engineering Theater schedule
Engineering Theater sessions will begin on the show floor at 11:45 a.m. The schedule is:
- Real-time Vision AI system on Edge AI platforms: Ravi Dua, the director of engineering at Einfochips, will take the stage at 11:45 a.m.
- Building and Investing in Physical AI: This panel with Srini Ananth, managing director at Intel Capital; Greg Estes, strategic advisor at the Mayfield Fund; Sed Fakoorian, the founder and CEO of Stealth; and Amulya Vishwanath, co-founder and managing partner at Techable VC, will begin at 12:30 p.m.
- Safety Without Stopping: Achieving Safety Compliant Operations for High-Density AMR/AGV Fleets with Real-Time Location Systems: John Calcio, VP of partnerships at Redpoint Positioning, will present at 1:15 p.m.
- How to Build and Scale a Humanoid Company: Bren Pierce, the CEO at Kinisi Robotics, will share insights at 2:00 p.m.
- Object Computers – Robots with Sentience: Nikhil Ramaswamy, the founder and GTM of sales and investment at CynLr, will speak at 2:45 p.m.
- A New World of Software-Defined Robotics, Opportunities and Risks: This session by Sreedhar Tumma, the global senior product marketing manager at QNX, will start at 3:30 p.m.
