RoboNexus Day 1 - Business Development and Opportunities

Another main theme of the talks on day 1 was the business development and opportunities in robotics.

The first speaker in this series was Neena Buck from Strategy Analytics who talked about commercial opportunities and constraints for mobile robotics. Buck started off by showing how the US has been gearing all robotics research toward defense and aerospace robots while the Far East has been focused on developing more social purpose biped and humanoid robots. She then used this difference to explain the status of the current robotics businesses: consisting of “soup-to-nuts” robot manufacturers, component suppliers, hobbyist kits and a lot of hopefuls who are either hobbyists or educators.

Coming from a non-robotics background, she complained how robotic companies never: understand the consumer’s needs, understand the price the consumer is willing to pay, understand the quality of product the customer expects and  understand the benefits of branding and other marketing strategies. She then used this to illustrate how iRobot broke the trend with the roomba and how that created a huge success.

Her “next big app” ideas were to partner up with a manufacturer of whatever existing non-automated device that you are automating or to position yourself as a part of the supply chain connecting component vendors and developers.

Louis Ross from Global Emerging Technology Institute (GETI) talked next about the services offered by GETI. GETI focuses on researching research groups around the globe in the field of MEMS and nanotechnology and then creating collaborations between their technologies to bring out new MEMS products for OEM's and for commercial applications using MEMS. I talked to Ross and Miwako Waga, their Managing director in the Japan office, after the talk and they were both interested in being contacted to find out about getting access to MEMS and nanotechnology developments in the Far East.

The biggest attraction in this series for the day was the talk by Lance Ulanoff from PCMag.com. Since the RoboBusiness conference in Cambridge, MA, I've heard him request to retire the term 'robot' to save the robotics industry. Today I got to hear why. From the perspective of a consumer electronics/application robot, it made sense how the term robot implies a frightening change. And that is exactly what iRobot did when they first introduced the roomba. However, it is hard to ignore how the whole situation is analogous to how the term “PC” was thought of around about 30 years ago. Will history repeat itself and prove Ulanoff wrong? Will we lose the hobbyist robotics in the process?

The last speaker was Michael Chester from International Marketing\r\nConsultants who talked about how to set up a business, how to get funding, how\r\nto market it and finally, how to exit. Louis Ross from Global Emerging Technology Institute (GETI) talked next about the services offered by GETI. GETI focuses on researching research groups around the globe in the field of MEMS and nanotechnology and then creating collaborations between their technologies to bring out new MEMS products for OEM’s and for commercial applications using MEMS. I talked to Ross and Miwako Waga, their Managing director in the Japan office, after the talk and they were both interested in being contacted to find out about getting access to MEMS and nanotechnology developments in the Far East.

The biggest attraction in this series for the day was the talk by Lance Ulanoff from PCMag.com. Since the RoboBusiness conference in Cambridge, MA, I’ve heard him request to retire the term “robot” to save the robotics industry. Today I got to hear why. From the perspective of a consumer electronics/application robot, it made sense how the term robot implies a frightening change. And that is exactly what iRobot did when they first introduced the roomba. However, it is hard to ignore how the whole situation is analogous to how the term “PC” was through around about 30 years ago. Will history repeat itself and prove Ulanoff wrong? Will we lose the hobbyist robotics in the process?

 

The last speaker was Michael Chester from International Marketing Consultants who talked about how to set up a business, how to get funding, how to market it and finally, how to exit.