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Bill Gross is Executive Chairman of Evolution Robotics. Bill has been Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Idealab since 1996. In his career, Bill has launched a number of successful companies, including GNP Development (acquired by Lotus), Knowledge Adventure (acquired by Havas Vivendi) and Overture (acquired by Yahoo!). A well known visionary and entrepreneur, Bill sits on the Board of multiple companies and the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology.
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Dr. Paolo Pirjanian is President and CEO of the Evolution Robotics and a member of Evolution's Board of Directors. Paolo has several years of startup experience in leading technology innovation and crosses over to business development. He fosters strategic partnerships with consumer product companies to translate technologies into competitive market positions. Paolo is the US Chair of IEEE Robotics and Automation Industrial Activities Board and he serves on the Boards of RoboNexus, Autonomous Robot Journal, and Intelligent Service Robots Journal. He has received several honors and awards including the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award in 2004 and Technical Leadership Award from JPL/NASA. Paolo has worked at JPL/NASA where he initiated research thrusts on multi-robot system for space exploration. He also served as a part-time lecturer at the Computer Science department of University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. degree from Aalborg University, Denmark.
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Dr. Mario Munich is Vice President of Engineering and Principal Scientist. His field of expertise includes computer vision, speech recognition, and human-robotic interaction. His PhD work focused in developing novel Human-Machine Interfaces using video technology and computer vision techniques. After graduation he joined Vocalpoint Technologies, San Francisco, CA, where he worked on noise-robust speech recognition engines. He has directed the Human-Robot Interaction group at Evolution Robotics where he has developed a speech-based human-robot interface and a personality and emotional models for a robot. He has also been a Project Lead for Professional Services on embedded robotics solutions. He has designed and implemented the visual pattern recognition system now installed on the SONY Aibo robotic dog. He currently manages the engineering development efforts at Evolution Robotics and he is also the PI for government contracts. He received the degree of Electronic Engineer (with honors) from the National University of Rosario, Argentina, in 1990, and the M.S. and the Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1994 and 2000, respectively.
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Dr. Enrico Di Bernardo is Vice President of Technology. He has been focusing on Evolution Robotics' machine vision technologies; his contributions ranging from R&D activity to closing OEM licensing deals with customers. He has played the PI role in government contracts and led the development effort for the Sharper Image robotic vacuum cleaner. Leveraging on a strong academic background, Enrico has co-authored 4 granted and several pending patents. His past work experiences include co-founding two software start-ups, leading R&D activities at the technology incubator Idealab, and a Postdoctoral Scholar position at the Division of Applied Sciences of the California Institute of Technology. Enrico received a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Padova, Italy.
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Mike Dooley is Vice President of Product and Business Development. Mike has extensive experience in market research and new product development. He has worked on product innovations for leading companies in package goods, consumer software, games, toys and e-learning. Mike is also one of the early pioneers in consumer robotics. He was part of the founding team at LEGO that launched MINDSTORMS, a user-friendly robotics invention system which became widely popular with children, educators and adult enthusiasts. Most recently, Mike was Vice President of Research and Strategy for Riverdeep Interactive Learning where he helped define the company's next generation of products and platforms. Mike has an M.B.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. in Psychology from Tufts University.
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Yutaka Yamamoto is General Manager, Asia, and brings with him more than 20 years of strategic and hands-on high-technology and product development experience. Most recently, Yutaka was President of PlanetWeb Japan where he built a business from the ground up. Prior to that, he held various positions with Sega including Director of New Technology and Manager of Hardware R&D. While at Sega, Yutaka managed the Sega Saturn Net Link project. He has also held key engineering positions at IBM working on the ThinkPad line and display technologies. Mr. Yamamoto holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Tokyo University.
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