On January 8th and 9th the Kick Off Meeting of INBOTS CSA project was held in Brussels. A consortium of more than 25 companies from 13 European countries brings together the main stakeholders involved in interactive robotics among the member states to deliver future guidelines for the introduction and barrier overcoming in everyday life of European citizens focused on three main domains: healthcare, manufacturing and consumers. The project was funded by the European Commission under the ICT-28-2017 call and has a global budget close to 3 million euros for the next 3 coming years.
The project aims to overcoming the lack of a clear understanding and communication between the relevant actors, creating a Community Hub on interactive robotics. The members of this consortium, in collaboration with experts from several areas, will ensure the widest outreach of scientific application, training, standardisation, regulation, and dissemination activities concerning interactive robotics for the next three years.
During this meeting, Anne Bajart, head of Unit of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at the European Commission, shared with the consortium the importance of Coordination and Support Actions for the European Commission in a way that strengthens the industry and boosts the economy. She also brought to the project consortium the role and responsibility of continuing the labour undertaken by previous projects such as euRobotics, ROCKEU2, RoboLaw or Wereable Robots.