Russia’s biggest robotics event, the Skolkovo International Robotics Conference took place on March 20-22. This year the conference Skolkovo Robotics was held the third time. 

The event was split into master classes, lectures, exhibitions, Hackathon and the main conference with over 50 speakers from Russia, Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain and Canada. Among the conference keynote speakers were the co-founder and the CEO of Mail.ru Group Dmitry Grishin; the Head of Intelligent Robotic Systems Laboratory of the Innopolis University Professor Evgeni Magid; the Chair of the Scientific Committee Scuola di Robotica Gianmarco Veruggio; one of the creators of “Eugen Gusman” chat-blog Vladimir Veselov; Professor of the Toyohashi University of Technology Kazuhiko Terashima and others.

Evgeni Magid chaired the session of Innopolis University, which was dedicated to the Human Robot Interaction. Among the speakers were the Head of Pal Robotics Francesco Ferro, Ilya Afanasyev (Innopolis University), Nadezhda Zilberman (Tomsk State University) and Irina Petrova (Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod).

Sergey Masyagin, Vice-Provost of the Innopolis University shared his impressions about the event: “The discussion on the topic of educational robotics revealed the gap between the industry’s expectations from graduates and the knowledge provided by schools and universities. The experience shows that educational robotics is the best tool to attract children in IT. Robotics helps children to get the skills of creation, critical thinking and team work”.

«Innopolis University session on human robot interaction emphasized the urgent need for a multidisciplinary approach to robotics R&D processes which should involve specialists in such areas as psychology, sociology, philology, design and even law. I am sure that today’s presentation with lively follow-up discussions opened new horizons for the participants; they got a clear understanding that a customer, which wants to purchase a robot, expects not only a good hardware and software, but requires the product to be attractive and convenient for everyday use. And the key to success is the multidisciplinary approach» - emphasized Evgeni Magid.

The team of Innopolis University undergraduate students took part in the Hackathon, which was part of the third International Conference Skolkovo Robotics. Our students developed a device prototype that helps people with limited sensory perception. Michael Usvyatsov, Innopolis University undergraduate student, said: “The Hackathon gave us an opportunity to get a huge amount of new knowledge and skills: we got onto such systems as ROS, openAL, openGL. Moreover, at the end of the first day, we discovered an existing startup, which develops the identical product - and we decided to change our project topic. Due to well-organized teamwork and friendly atmosphere of the event, we successfully have changed the direction of our work and found a new vision of the project. It was a great experience that would be useful for us in the future”.