Topic: Robotics

Zoe Kleinman

Zoe Kleinman is a trailblazing journalist who made history as the BBC’s first Technology Editor in 2021. With nearly 20 years of broadcasting experience, she has become a leading voice in making complex tech topics accessible to mainstream audiences across national and international platforms. From her engaging segments on Radio 4’s "Today" programme to her appearances on the BBC’s other flagship news shows, Zoe covers a wide range of subjects, including artificial intelligence, gadgets and the intricacies of cybersecurity.

Her adventurous spirit shines through in her reporting, having raced drones in the Nevada desert, tested a computer made out of living cells and spent the night in a house full of robots.

In 2023, she played a pivotal role in the BBC’s coverage of the UK government’s AI Safety Summit, showcasing her ability to tackle critical issues in the tech world. Zoe’s insightful interviews with the world’s leading tech bosses, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Google Deepmind’s Sir Demis Hassabis, along with her exclusive reports on topics such as cryptocurrency and gaming, have made her a respected authority in her field.

Henrik I. Christensen

Dr. Henrik I. Christensen is the Qualcomm Chancellor’s Chair of Robot Systems and a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, UC San Diego. He is the director of the Contextual Robotics Institute, the Cognitive Robotics Laboratory, and the Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory

He is an academic doing research on robotics and artificial intelligence, the main editor of the US National Robotics Roadmap, and an entrepreneur. He has co-founded multiple companies including Robust.AI, Christensen Consulting Group, AeroScan and Intelligent Machines. He is also engaged in investments in publicly traded companies and start-ups through companies such as ROBO Global (co-founder), Interwoven and Spring Mountain Capital (advisor). Appointed a Fellow at Temasek, (April 2025).

Dr. Christensen does research on robotics and AI, with an emphasis on a systems view to problems. The research has been published in 400+ contributions across AI, Computer Vision, and Robotics. The research has been adopted by companies such as Electrolux, ABB, KUKA, Weda, BMW, Boeing, iRobot, PerMobil, General Motors, … He serves as a advisor to agencies and companies across four continents.

Oliver Cameron

Oliver is the co-founder and CEO of Odyssey. Odyssey is an AI lab pioneering general-purpose world models: causal, multimodal systems that learn to predict and interact with the world over long horizons. This foundational technology promises to revolutionize robotics, science, healthcare, education, gaming, defense, and beyond.

Odyssey was founded in late 2023 by Oliver Cameron (Cruise VP, Voyage CEO, Y Combinator alum) and Jeff Hawke (Wayve VP, Oxford AI PhD), with deep roots in experts in world models, autonomous systems, RL, and frontier AI. They’ve since recruited a world-class research team from DeepMind, Tesla, Waymo, Meta, Apple, and Wayve.

Odyssey has raised significant venture capital from GV and EQT, with additional backing from NVIDIA, Elad Gil, Jeff Dean, Guillermo Rauch, Garry Tan, Kyle Vogt, and researchers at OpenAI, DeepMind, and Midjourney.

Prior to Odyssey, Oliver spent 8 years building and scaling fully driverless cars. Oliver served as VP of Product at Cruise—a leader in self-driving cars—after the acquisition of his own autonomous driving startup, Voyage. At Cruise, Oliver focused on AI, products, tooling, and services to scale the fleet, AV driving behaviors, next-generation vehicles, and more. He led the launch of the world’s first fully driverless service in San Francisco, and scaled it to 3 major US cities, generating substantial revenue and over 100,000 5-star ratings from customers.

Before being acquired by Cruise, Oliver was co-founder and CEO of Voyage, a 70-person startup that developed and deployed state-of-the-art self-driving cars. In March 2021, Cruise acquired Voyage to supercharge their technology efforts.

Prior to Voyage, Oliver was the VP of Product & Engineering at the online education startup Udacity. Oliver worked closely with AI pioneer Sebastian Thrun to deliver world-class online education to millions of people. At Udacity, Oliver led a 200-strong research, product, engineering, and content team, launching and growing online classes in AI, autonomous vehicles, robotics, and more.

Dennis Hong

Dr. Dennis Hong, a TED alumnus, is a Professor and the Founding Director of RoMeLa (Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory) of the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department at UCLA.
His research focuses on robot locomotion and manipulation, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. He is the inventor of a number of novel robots and mechanisms, including the ‘whole skin locomotion’ for mobile robots inspired by how amoeba move, a unique three-legged waking robot STriDER, an air-powered robotic hand RAPHaEL, and the world’s first car that can be driven by the blind.
His work has been featured on numerous national and international media. Washington Post magazine called Dr. Hong “the Leonardo da Vinci of robots.” Dr. Hong has been named to Popular Science’s 8th annual “Brilliant 10”, honoring top scientists younger than 40 years of age from across the United States, “Forward Under 40” by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Alumni Association, and also honored as “Top 40 Under 40” alumni by Purdue University. Hong’s other past awards include the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award, the SAE International’s Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, and the ASME Freudenstein / GM Young Investigator Award to name a few.
Dr. Hong also actively leads student teams for various international robotics and design competitions winning numerous top prizes including the DARPA Urban Challenge where they won third place and the $500,000 prize, and the RoboCup, the international autonomous robot soccer competition where his team won First Place in both the Kid-Size and Adult-Size Humanoid divisions and brought the Louis Vuitton Cup Best Humanoid Award to the United States for the very first time. Dr. Hong received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1994), his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University (1999, 2002).
He is also a serious gourmet chef and a magician performing annual charity magic shows and lectures on the science of magic.