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Welcome to Robotics in Africa Forum at IROS 2024

Welcome to Robotics in Africa Forum at IROS 2024

The Robotics in Africa Forum will take place at the 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Systems (IROS) in Abu Dhabi, UAE on October 16th, 2024.

The forum serves as a spotlight, illuminating the remarkable work happening in the field of robotics across the African continent. From cutting-edge research to practical industrial applications, education, and training, this forum aims to showcase the state of robotics in Africa. By providing legitimacy, publicity, and credibility, we celebrate novel and innovative efforts undertaken by Africans and their collaborators.

Key Objectives:

Join us at IROS 2024 to celebrate the vibrant robotics community in Africa and contribute to its continued growth!

Dates Dates

Important Dates

Call for Participation Opening Date

Opens: May 22, 2024
Forum Date: Wednesday- October -16- 2024 at 15:30-18:30
Deadline for extended abstract submission: July 18, 2024 August 15, 2024
Conference registration deadline: See IROS 2024 Registration
Call For Participation Call For Participation

Invitations to Researchers

We invite researchers (including faculty, students, and industry engineers) from, or collaborating with, African institutions to submit a 2-4 page extended abstract following the IEEE conference format. These abstracts should highlight exciting research outcomes, ongoing projects, and demonstrations that showcase the diverse landscape of robotics research and industry initiatives in Africa. The forum organizers will review the submissions, and accepted abstracts will be featured in the poster and demo presentation session during the forum. The results from the forum will be collated into a peer-reviewed publication.

Submission Link: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/RAF2024/

Submission format templates: https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html

Venue Details Venue Details

The African Continent at IROS 2024 workshop will be held in Abu Dhabi. For details about the venue, please visit https://iros2024-abudhabi.org/travel-support#venue.

Travel Support for Students

Students are encouraged to apply for travel support through the main IROS 2024 website: https://iros2024-abudhabi.org/travel-support.

Volunteer

IROS 2024 is seeking volunteers for the conference. This is a great opportunity to get involved with the conference and comes with great perks. Please visit https://iros2024-abudhabi.org/cf-volunteers to apply.

Virtual Participation Virtual Participation

https://albany.zoom.us/j/84304292946?pwd=8BbjraylRqnwznaGNwgtjmcxekZFAt.1

Meeting ID: 843 0429 2946

Passcode: 011824

Program Program
Point Topic Time Speaker
1 Introduction ~10 mins Dr. Chinwe Ekenna
2 Keynote: Culturally Sensitive Social Robotics for Africa 20 mins Dr. David Vernon
3 Invited talk: Where Robotics is Making the Greatest Impact on the African Continent: Risks and Opportunities 15 mins Dr. Marwa ElDiwiny
4 Pan-African Robotics Competition finalist presentations (Presenters have a poster) 10 mins Poster Presenters
5 Break time ~20 mins -
6 Invited talk: Building Collaborative Robotics For African Agriculture 15 mins Dr. Paul Amayo
7 Poster presentations / demos (3 min lightning talk format) ~20 mins Poster Presenters
8 Keynote: Robotics in Africa; Leveraging Local Challenges for Global Innovation 20 mins Dr. Amir Patel
9 Invited talk: IEEE ICRA@40 – Africa: showcasing and celebrating robotics and automation in Africa. 15 mins Dr. Ndivhuwo Makondo
10 State of Robotics in Africa Report 10 mins Dr. Kenechukwu Mbanisi
11 Panel/Group discussion 30 mins D. Vernon, A. Patel, organizers, Marwa, Makondo, Paul, Steering committee
12 Conclusion ~2 mins Dr. Chinwe Ekenna
Sponsors Sponsors

TDB

Organizing Committee Organizing Committee
Ekenna

Dr. Chinwe Ekenna is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at ...

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Ken

Kenechukwu (fondly called ‘Kene’) is very passionate about two things: ...

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Ade

Simeon Adebola is passionate about developing interdisciplinary approaches ...

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Az

Addisu Taddese, Intrinsic is passionate about applying robotics research and advanced algorithms to solve challenging….

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Speakers Speakers

Invited Speakers' Biography

The topics will focus on discussing the challenges and opportunities within the robotics landscape in Africa, as well as the individual research of the speakers. The discussions will explore various cutting-edge areas of robotics, including:

  • Cognitive robotics
  • Bipedal robots
  • Self-driving cars
  • Control systems
  • Robot learning
  • Mobile manipulators
Ekenna

Dr Chinwe Ekenna

Dr. Chinwe Ekenna is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and the Director of the Robotics, Algorithm and Computable Systems (RACS) Laboratory. Dr. Ekenna is a faculty advisor for UAlbany's student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery-Women (ACM-W) and participates in publicly engaged activities which encourage young women in STEM. One such activity was the Meet the Women in Robotics Workshop (WiRW) at the 2019 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference (R:SS) on June 23, 2019, which she presented with researchers from the U.S. Air Force Academy. The workshop was designed to raise the visibility of women in robotics, strengthen the community of female roboticists by bringing together women from various disciplines and subfields in robotics, provide opportunities for networking, and connect junior female robotics researchers to senior mentors in the field. The workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Dr. David Vernon

David Vernon is a Research Professor at Carnegie Mellon University Africa where he heads the Robotics Lab. His research focusses on cognitive robotics, with particular emphasis on cognitive architectures and agent autonomy. He has been active in the field of robotics for over forty years and in cognitive robotics for more than twenty. During this period, he has held positions at Westinghouse Electric, Trinity College Dublin, European Commission, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Science Foundation Ireland, Khalifa University, University of Genoa, Technical University of Munich, University of Skövde, and University of Bremen. He coordinated two European cognition-related research networks, he was the technical coordinator of the project that created the iCub, an open-source cognitive humanoid robot, and he was the research director of DREAM, a project to deliver the next generation robot-enhanced therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). He was a founding co-chair of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Committee for Cognitive Robotics, and he continues to contribute as co-chair emeritus. He also serves on the IEEE RAS Women in Engineering Committee and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Engineers of Ireland, a Research Fellow at the Kigali Collaborative Research Centre, Rwanda, and a past Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He is an associate editor of Cognitive Systems Research, and a series editor of Springer’s Cognitive Systems Monographs (COSMOS). He has written four books on robotics and cognitive systems and over 140 papers. Website: www.vernon.eu Email: david@vernon.eu vernon@cmu.edu vernon@ieee.org

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Dr. Amir Patel

Amir Patel is a robotics researcher with over 14 years of experience in both industry and academia. He is currently an Associate Professor in Robotics & AI the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL). Prior to this, he was in Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Cape Town (UCT), as well as the director of the African Robotics Unit (ARU). His research involves studying the manoeuvrability of robotic and biological systems such as the cheetah. He has held visiting professor positions at Carnegie Mellon University (2018) and Johns Hopkins University (2018) as well as University of Oxford (2023). Some of his accolades include a Google Research Scholar (one of the first two African recipients), two Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Fellowships, a Mathworks Research Award (the first ever African recipient) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) Emerging Researcher Award.  

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Dr. Paul Amayo

Dr Paul Amayo is a Senior Lecturer and Principal Investigator in the African Robotics Unit at the University of Cape Town. He has broad experience in both hardware and software development over various sectors (from self-driving cars in the UK to paratransit in Kenya) with a primary focus on robotics. He has Dphil in Engineering Science from the Oxford Robotics Institute, University of Oxford. Paul strongly believes that technology holds the key to solving some of the world's and in particular Africa's most pressing problems. His interests are therefore not only in advancement of technology through research but also in its subsequent education that ensures that this technology is adopted into communities where it would do the most good.

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Dr. Marwa ElDiwiny

Dr. Marwa ElDiwiny was named one of the "30 Women in Robotics You Should Know" in 2020 by Robohub. She earned her PhD in Robotics (Doctor of Engineering Sciences) from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, with a focus on Soft Structures and Their Integrity Inspired by Nature. In 2023, she founded SoftBoticsX, a medtech startup where she serves as CEO. At SoftBoticsX, she and her team are dedicated to preventing lower extremity diabetic complications through AI-powered shape-morphing technology that ensures precise pressure redistribution. Dr. ElDiwiny also hosts the Soft Robotics Podcast, which reaches an audience in over 90 countries.

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Dr. Ndivhuwo Makondo

Ndivhuwo Makondo is a Research Scientist in Machine Learning at IBM Research | Africa, in the South Africa Lab. He holds a BSc and an MSc (specializing in Robotics) in Electical Engineering from the University of Cape Town, South Africa; and a PhD in Computational Intelligence and Systems Science from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. He began his career on a Masters Studentship at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 2011, South Africa, in the Mobile Intelligent Autonomous Systems (MIAS) group, where he conducted research on stability analysis and path planning for a mobile manipulator as part of the Mining Safety Platform project. He then enrolled for a PhD at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2013, on a MEXT scholarship, conducting research in Machine Learning and Robotics, where investigated the acceleration of robot learning of motor skills with knowledge transfer. Prior to joining IBM Research in 2019, he was research lead of mobile manipulation at CSIR MIAS for a year, where he led a team investigating the deployment of robot manipulators in unstructured and dynamic environments. He is also currently a Visiting Lecturer at the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Poster Presenters Poster Presenters
Paper ID Paper Title Authors
1 Navigating STEM Education: Integrating Educational Robotics Programs in Nigerian Secondary Schools Samuel O Yusuf (African Educational STEM Learning without barriers Foundation); Ayobambo O Jegede (African Educational STEM Learning without barriers foundation)
4 Robotic Telescopes and Geodetic Robotics for Sustainable Agricultural Planning in Africa Zainaaz Hansa (North West University); Heystek Grobler (North West University)
7 Empowering STEM Education in Africa: Sustainable Production of Robotic Kits through Recycling and 3D Printing Technologies Oluwapelumi A Ojo (Coderina Education And Technology Foundation); Oluwatosin Olugbemi (Coderina Education And Technology Foundation); Christiana Anthony (Coderina Education And Technology Foundation); Faith Effiong (Coderina Education And Technology Foundation); David Bamisaiye (Coderina Education And Technology Foundation); Stephen Enyioke (Coderina Education And Technology Foundation); Christian OLARINRE (CODERINA EDTECH)
8 Surveying Rwandan Cultural Knowledge for Respectful Human-Robot Interaction in Africa Eyerusalem Mamuye Birhan (Carnegie Mellon University Africa); David Vernon (Carnegie Mellon University Africa)
9 Biological Motion for Gestural Communication in Social Robots Adedayo S Akinade (Carnegie Mellon University Africa); David Vernon (Carnegie Mellon University Africa)
10 A Realization of the Situation Model Framework in the CRAM Cognitive Architecture with Deep Learning Muhammed Danso (Carnegie Mellon University Africa); David Vernon (Carnegie Mellon University Africa)
11 Behavior Trees for Culturally Sensitive Social Robots: African Culture Case Study Ibrahim Jimoh (Carnegie Mellon University - Africa); Heran Equbay (Carnegie Mellon University - Africa); Clifford Onyonka (Carnegie Mellon University - Africa); Tsegazeab Tefferi (Carnegie Mellon University - Africa); David Vernon (Carnegie Mellon University - Africa)
12 IROS 2024: Team RobotsMali, 3rd at PARC (Pan-African Robotics Competition), presents its latest innovations. Hamidou Hamid Sanogo (RobotsMali)
13 An Introduction to the ros2 control framework using a low cost Differential Drive Robot Chinedu Amadi (Independent)
14 Robotics and Computer Vision for Sustainable Agriculture: A Case Study on Tomato Counting Jeslone Lukisa (SMARAF)*(PARC 2024 participant)
N/A Optimisation of autonomous navigation of agricultural robots Tahiry Manantsiory RANDRIANJATOVO; Faly Christian ANDRIANARISON; Maminiaina Herizo MANAMPISOA; Avotriniaina MECENNI

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