ROBO Global Insights

Insights, February 28, 2022

A Conversation with Illah Nourbakhsh on The Promise of AI

February 23, 2022

The Investor's Guide to AI: What It Is, How It Works & How to Invest

As long-time investors in disruptive technology, we believe that everyone could benefit from gaining a better understanding of AI, so you too can...

Insights, February 17, 2022

Your AI Questions Answered by the Head of MIT's AI Lab

What impact will AI have on the economy? How can AI help in the medical field? Will self-driving cars soon be a reality? As investors,...

Daniela Rus

Daniela Rus is the Director of CSAIL at MIT. She serves as the Director of the Toyota-CSAIL Joint Research Center and is a member of the science advisory board of the Toyota Research Institute. Rus’s research interests are in robotics and artificial intelligence. The recipient of the 2017 Engelberger Robotics Award from the Robotics Industries Association, she is also a Class of 2002 MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of ACM, AAAI and IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Daniela earned her PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University.

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Erica Allaby

Erica first joined the ROBO Global team as a content marketing specialist in 2014 and currently serves as the firm’s content manager. She manages the creative content, social media, and marketing strategies that lie at the convergence of investing and robotics. Erica graduated from High Point University as a Presidential Scholar with a BA in Journalism and has had bylines in both print and digital media. Prior to ROBO, Erica dedicated three years to editorial, research, and social media internships.

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Henrik Christensen

Dr. Henrik I. Christensen is the Qualcomm Chancellor’s Chair of Robot Systems and a Professor of Computer Science at Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering UC San Diego and director of the Institute for Contextual Robotics. He was also the founding director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent machines (IRIM) at Georgia Institute of Technology (2006-2016). He performs research on systems integration, human-robot interaction, mapping and robot vision at the Cognitive Robotics Laboratory and has published more than 350 contributions across AI, robotics and vision. Actively engaged in the setup and coordination of global robotics research, Henrik collaborates with institutions and industries across three continents with an emphasis on solving “real problems with real solutions.” In 2011, he received the Engelberger Award, the highest honor awarded by the robotics industry, and was named the “Boeing Supplier of the Year.” He is a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

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Illah Nourbakhsh

Illah R. Nourbakhsh is Professor of Robotics, Director of the Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) lab and Associate Director for robotics faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. He has served as Robotics Group lead at NASA/Ames Research Center, and he was a founder and chief scientist of Blue Pumpkin Software, Inc. His current research projects explore community-based robotics, including educational and social robotics and ways to use robotic technology to empower individuals and communities. The CEO and Chairman of Airviz, Inc., Illah is a World Economic Forum Global Steward, a member of the Global Future Council on the Future of AI and Robotics, and a member of the IEEE Global Initiative for the Ethical Considerations in the Design of Autonomous Systems. He also serves on the Global Innovation Council of the Varkey Foundation and is a Senior Advisor to The Future Society, Harvard Kennedy School. Illah earned his BS, MA, and PhD degrees in computer science from Stanford University and is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. He is an active member of the ROBO Global Strategic Advisory Board.

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Jeremie Capron

Jeremie Capron joined ROBO Global in 2017 with more than ten years of experience as an equity research analyst in Asia, Europe, and the United States, with a focus on industrial technology. Most recently, Jeremie led CLSA’s industrial research out of New York. For the prior seven years he served as a Senior Research Analyst with CLSA in Singapore and Japan, receiving a No.1 stock picker award from Nikkei/Starmine and ranking No.1 for Japan Materials Research in Asiamoney Brokers’ Poll for three consecutive years. Earlier in his career, he was a project manager with Veolia Environment in Europe and Asia. Jeremie is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder, holds a Master’s Degree in Science and Executive Engineering from the École des Mines de Paris, and holds FINRA series 7, 63, 87 licenses. He is fluent in French and Japanese.

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Ken Goldberg

Ken Goldberg is a Professor and Chair of the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department at UC Berkeley, and he has secondary appointments in EECS, Art Practice at the School of Information, and in Radiation Oncology at the UCSF Medical School. He is also the Director of the CITRIS “People and Robots” Initiative and the UC Berkeley AUTOLAB where he and his students pursue research in geometric algorithms and machine learning for robotics and automation in surgery, manufacturing, and other applications. Ken has more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and 8 US Patents. He co-founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. Ken was awarded the NSF PECASE (Presidential Faculty Fellowship) from President Bill Clinton in 1995, elected IEEE Fellow in 2005, and selected by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society for the George Saridis Leadership Award in 2016. Ken is an active member of the ROBO Global Strategic Advisory Board.

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Lisa Chai

Lisa Chai brings more than 17 years of experience investing in disruptive technology companies to her role as ROBO Global’s Senior Research Analyst. Prior to joining ROBO Global, Lisa was a corporate strategy consultant at Bluemont Partners where she worked with emerging growth technology companies. She also spent 10 years at Palisade Capital Management and AG Asset Management (a subsidiary of Angelo, Gordon & Co.) where she was a sector head of technology investing in the semiconductor, software, and Internet industries. Earlier in her career, she served as a Research Analyst/Portfolio Manager at Tavistock Group and Ridgecrest Partners, a hedge fund focused on the technology and telecom sectors. Lisa is currently a member of the Empire Angels, a professional angel group investing in early stage technology ventures with a strong focus in Internet, fintech, and enterprise software. She is also a Strategic Advisor to MState.io, a Blockchain growth lab backed by Comcast Ventures, IBM and Boldstart Ventures, focused on scaling the most promising blockchain companies globally for the Enterprise sector. She graduated from Boston University Questrom School of Business.

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Louis-Vincent Gave

After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Duke University and studying Mandarin at Nanjing University, Louis joined the French Army where he served as a second lieutenant in a mountain infantry battalion. After leaving the army, he worked as a financial analyst with Paribas in Paris and Hong Kong. He then launched GaveKal Research with Charles Gave and Anatole Kaletsky in London in 1999. Since 2002, Louis-Vincent has been based in Hong Kong where he oversees GaveKal’s money management business and contributes to the firm’s research. He is the author of five books, including his latest, Too Different for Comfort, that explores the impact of robotics on the world around us.

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Nina Deka

Nina Deka brings nearly two decades of healthcare industry and investment research experience to the ROBO Global research team. Before joining ROBO Global in 2019, Nina spent six years as a research analyst on the sell-side at Piper Jaffray where she covered healthcare IT and services, focusing on themes such as telehealth and data analytics. Prior to transitioning to financial services, Nina spent 13+ years in the healthcare sector. More recently, she was a sales consultant at Becton Dickinson, where she helped some of the nation’s largest health systems improve patient outcomes and efficiency, while increasing sales for BD devices. She worked at Cardinal Health in its Financial Development Program, and held positions that spanned sales, corporate finance, and post-merger integration across Cardinal’s global manufacturing and distribution businesses. Nina received her BBA in Finance from the University of Iowa and an MBA from Cornell University. She also holds FINRA licenses series 7, 63, 86, and 87.

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Raffaello D’Andrea

Raffaello D’Andrea is the founder and CEO of Verity, the world’s leading autonomous indoor drone company, and a professor at ETH Zürich. In 2003, he co-founded Kiva Systems, which was later acquired by Amazon and rebranded as Amazon Robotics. During his time as a professor at Cornell University, he co-founded the systems engineering program and led the Cornell Robot Soccer team to four world championships. Raffaello’s work as a new media artist has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale and is part of the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada and France’s FRAC Centre. With his team at Verity, he created the drone design and choreography for Cirque Du Soleil’s Paramour on Broadway, Metallica’s WorldWired Tour, and Céline Dion’s Courage Tour. In 2020, he was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and elected to the National Academy of Engineering. His TED and research videos, with tens of millions of views, offer an inspiring view into the world of engineering, robotics, and computer science.

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Investment Insights

A Conversation with Illah Nourbakhsh on The Promise of AI

The Investor's Guide to AI: What It Is, How It Works & How to Invest

Your AI Questions Answered by the Head of MIT's AI Lab