When Pablo Molina (BASc ’11), chairman, CTO, VP of Product and co-founder of Avidbots, wanted to improve his company's flagship autonomous floor-scrubbing robot, he turned to his former University of Waterloo professor and mentor, William Melek, for help.“When I attended Waterloo, I co-founded a robotics team and Professor Melek was instrumental in helping us all the way through,” Molina says. “We now have a global company and have to solve really hard problems. I reached out and asked if we could collaborate on research because Waterloo talent is truly among the brightest in the country.”
The University of Waterloo has the largest and most active robotics and automation research group in Canada, and RoboHub brings together all the related technical, educational, research, and service support into one central group. The robotics expertise within RoboHub allows researchers and collaborators to dive deeper into some of the problems industry is grappling with and find research solutions that a company would not otherwise have access to on their own.
“Avidbots had the opportunity to get access to some of our brightest minds working in advanced robotics, artificial intelligence. The intellectual property generated from the research partnership will make them competitive in the marketplace and will put the products at the leading edge of the technology in their industry sector. This is something that is very unique to Waterloo and unlikely found anywhere else,” says Melek, RoboHub Director.
Melek explains that the robotics expertise within RoboHub allows them to dive deeper into some of the problems industry is grappling with and find research solutions that a company would not otherwise have access to on their own.
“Avidbots had the opportunity to get access to some of our brightest minds working in advanced robotics, artificial intelligence. The intellectual property generated from the research partnership will make them competitive in the marketplace and will put the products at the leading edge of the technology in their industry sector. This is something that is very unique to Waterloo and unlikely found anywhere else,” Melek says.
Waterloo RoboHub is powering Canadian robotics innovation through research opportunities and collaborations. Academic and industry partnerships like Avidbots can infuse research solutions into sectors critical for innovation and economic growth in Canada.
“Waterloo is an epicentre for robotics, not just in Canada, but globally because we have the talent and the institutions like the University of Waterloo,” Molina says. He is excited about the improvements to Neo and its commercial potential in the long term. “The collaboration has been helpful in expanding the research capability of Avidbots,” Molina says. “Working with the University of Waterloo will have a positive impact on our growth because we’ve been able to solve very hard problems that would have otherwise taken a very long time with a significant financial cost.”
Read the full article on the University of Waterloo News page.