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The Massachusetts Expertise Collaborative (MassTech) has launched an initiative to spice up the robotics sector throughout the state, an effort funded by $5 million in funding. The brand new division, established throughout the Innovation Institute at MassTech, will assist catalyze a complete statewide cluster improvement effort for robotics that can give attention to enlargement of analysis and improvement (R&D), testing, commercialization, and workforce improvement.
The division shall be led by the brand new director of the Division of Robotics, Peter Haas, who involves MassTech from the personal sector, the place he was the CEO of Avendly, the restaurant robotics firm. Previous to his startup work, Haas served because the analysis director for pc imaginative and prescient AI software program at IDC and the affiliate director of Brown College’s Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative. As a pacesetter within the robotics area, he has spoken at The Economist’s World Forward Gala and DHL Robotics Days, plus was on the qualifying groups for each the AI and robotic Avatar X-PRIZE competitions.
“This new robotics division will assist Massachusetts craft an revolutionary wave of robotics applied sciences that can solidify our international management on this area,” stated financial improvement secretary Yvonne Hao. “We’re dedicated to equipping our college students and workforce with the right instruments to examine future developments as they create autonomous merchandise that can play a pivotal function in shaping the trade’s future. Peter Haas has the information and experience wanted to make sure that we keep forward of the competitors.”
“Robotics extends past Boston and Cambridge; it’s a statewide trade in Massachusetts, with cohorts of robotics corporations clustered in Central Massachusetts and North of Boston, in addition to the marine-focused autonomy startups clustered throughout Cape Cod and the South Coast,” stated Carolyn Kirk, government director of the MassTech Collaborative. “Peter’s multifaceted experience in robotics, each as a technologist, college chief, and startup government, make this a significant addition to our MassTech crew. His profession expertise will make him a pure associate for our current stakeholders throughout the Massachusetts robotics ecosystem. He’s the fitting particular person to assist us design and launch game-changing packages that help analysis, workforce, and ecosystem improvement and can assist us keep our international management in robotics and autonomy.”
3 keys to rising Massachusetts robotics ecosystem
The brand new Robotics Division will design packages to deal with three key focus areas:
Ecosystem Improvement: Packages to strengthen connections between stakeholders to develop and additional form state’s profile as a worldwide chief in robotics
Expertise Commercialization: Intention to offer startup help providers, entry to sources, and knowledgeable mentorship to early-stage robotics corporations
Workforce Improvement: Efforts to deal with trade’s want for middle-skill staff educated to work with robotic techniques and develop entry to careers in robotics, significantly for populations which have confronted underrepresentation within the tech and innovation financial system
“The Robotics cluster in Massachusetts is main the way in which amongst robotics clusters throughout the nation. It’s a powerhouse in warehouse and logistics robotics, and has a density of distinctive tutorial packages that’s unparalleled, main america in per capita robotics patents,” stated Haas. “It additionally has a variety of sectors represented that’s distinctive among the many robotics clusters, from undersea to humanoid and client to protection. If you wish to design or construct robots, few locations can match the expertise pool the exists within the Bay State. This funding provides MassTech the chance to construct on a tremendous basis to make Massachusetts a famend international vacation spot for robotics innovation.”
MassRobotics Accelerator
The primary program funded beneath the brand new initiative is the brand new accelerator program launched in early November 2023 by Boston-based MassRobotics, the “world’s main international impartial robotics innovation hub.” The inaugural MassRobotics Accelerator powered by MassTech will help 10 robotics corporations by offering “programming, particular person mentorship, and immersion within the world-class robotics community” that exists throughout Massachusetts, together with the robotics and autonomy startups housed at MassRobotics’ headquarters in Boston’s Seaport. The primary accelerator cohort, which shall be introduced in early 2024, will take part in a 13-week program that can present direct mentorship, entry to expertise and enterprise sources within the area, and an funding of $100,000 in non-dilutive funding to spice up their improvements.
“The funding for a robotics division inside Mass Tech Collaborative shall be impactful to the rising robotics trade right here throughout the Commonwealth,” stated Tom Ryden, government director MassRobotics. “The division shall be in a singular place to focus on the big selection of efforts and sources Massachusetts has to make it the premier place to begin and develop robotics and automation corporations.”
The MassRobotics Accelerator will culminate in a Demo Day on the Robotics Summit & Expo on Might 2, 2024. Taking part startups could have the chance to pitch their corporations to traders, trade leaders, and the broader tech neighborhood. MassRobotics is a strategic associate of the Robotics Summit & Expo, which is produced by The Robotic Report and dad or mum firm WTWH Media.
“I’m actually excited to listen to about MassRobotics’ new non-dilutive accelerator program funded by the Massachusetts Expertise Collaborative,” stated Peter Howard, CEO of RealTime Robotics, headquartered in Boston. “Each MassRobotics and the Collaborative have extremely skilled and insightful robotics entrepreneurs, able to each selecting nice applied sciences, and nurturing nice groups. Realtime Robotics had the nice fortune to land at MassRobotics shortly after each they and we fashioned. They had been implausible companions in serving to us construct our enterprise and make the fitting connections. They’ve grown right into a regional, nationwide, and now internationally famend robotics incubator. The Collaborative’s funding is being put in nice fingers that can guarantee nice issues come to life with it.”
The newly launched robotics initiative builds upon MassTech’s help and funding within the state’s robotics sector over the past decade-plus, together with over $28 million in awards advance the robotics sector in Massachusetts. Earlier investments embrace a multi-year dedication to MassRobotics’ Jumpstart Fellowship program, which supplies coaching alternatives for numerous highschool ladies to realize a foothold within the robotics trade, in addition to bigger investments in robotics testbeds statewide.
Different focus areas for Innovation Institute at MassTech
The Innovation Institute at MassTech has made a number of main investments in robotics infrastructure and expertise improvement by its Collaborative Analysis & Improvement Matching Grant Program and Expertise and Innovation Ecosystem grant packages, together with:
- A $2 million grant to Worcester Polytechnic Institute for New Autonomous Techniques Lab, a testing floor for revolutionary autonomous applied sciences which might be advancing future capabilities within the automotive, transportation, healthcare, robotics, and automation and manufacturing sectors
- A $4.4 million funding in Boston College’s Robotics and Autonomous Techniques Instructing and Innovation Middle (RASTIC), a three-year, $8.78 million challenge managed by BU in collaboration with MassRobotics and 6 trade companions
- A grant of $2 million to help the creation of BlueTech OCEAN (Open Collaborative Experimentation and Acceleration Community) at MITRE in Bedford, a two-year challenge that supported the current launch of a world-class check tank for marine robotics and an information sharing collaboration
- Over $3 million in help for a analysis middle led by Harvard and BU centered on assistive robotics and wearable applied sciences, to spur the event of rehabilitation, diagnostic, and assistive units which might be extra light-weight, inexpensive, and related, instruments designed to assist individuals with neuro-motor impairments.
MassTech’s new robotics division will strategically deploy funding with the goal of boosting the robotics ecosystem’s impression on the state’s tech and innovation financial system, as effectively with industries with sturdy regional significance, together with superior manufacturing, healthcare, local weather tech, and protection. The capacities developed by this initiative are supposed to spice up the state’s aggressive benefit and spur job development, to assist handle growing competitors from areas globally.