The Beating Heart of Robotics in Beijing
The future is certainly now, and one of those leading the charge into this brilliant AI future is Sotirios Stasinopoulos, co-founder and CEO of Popular Robotics. Stasinopoulos, a native of Greece, came to Beijing over nine years ago to pursue two of his passions – the Chinese language and robotics. “I did my undergrad in Electrical & Computer Engineering and my Master’s degree in Computer Vision in Athens, Greece, where I am from, and I moved to Beijing in 2011 to do an internship and continue studying Chinese, something that I had started as a hobby back in Greece, but was really interested in. A year after that, I started my PhD in Robotics and Automation in Tsinghua University,” recounts Stasinopoulos. And like many Chinese university educated expats in China, he decided to stay on, working for a leading robotics company – UBTech Robotics – before venturing out and starting his own business.
If that still sounds rather daunting to wrap your head around, it is understandable. It might also be one of the reasons why kids fear entering into the world of not only engineering, but that of robotics. This field still remains a mystery for those interested, with there being a wealth of information online but rarely any direct way in which to experiment.
advertisement
China, as a nation, has set itself apart as a leader in this field, constantly producing some of the top engineering minds globally, while offering conducive and competitive programs to both encourage creativity and innovation. And yet, a concern held all around the world about demographics within fields under the wide umbrella of hard sciences cannot be escaped. Despite a growth in numbers in the participation of female engineers in the promising field of robotics, they still make up a marginal 30 percent of the total. “We still have a lot of a work to do towards this direction and it needs to start from a young age. Young girls should be encouraged to explore more engineering-related projects, and building machines and robots should not only be considered as a thing boys should enjoy,” advises Stasinopoulos.
Whether or not this feels digestible or still feels quite daunting a topic to wrap one’s head around, it is an inescapable fact that Artificial Intelligence is not just a fad, but the future of innovation. Panic-stricken individuals across the world worry about being rendered redundant by automation of certain industries, but this should not be worth worrying about in the event that we encourage our children to not only familiarize themselves with the inner workings of the industry, but to explore and grow their talents as rapidly as the industry itself is evolving. “AI applications are already finding their ways into tasks we perform on an everyday basis, and although only some low level robots, such as robot floor sweepers and hotel delivery robots, have found their ways to consumer environments for now, in the following three to five years more task-specific robots will make consumers’ lives easier, and we have the first multi-tasking robot assistants in nine to ten years from now. With the continuous progress of AI, these robots will be able to intelligently perform tasks while integrating into our existing environments. This revolution will happen globally, but countries like China are definitely in the forefront of developing such intelligent robots,” admits Stasinopoulos. Simply put, China is ground zero for this next step of such innovation.
Stasinopoulos is just one among several brilliant minds directly involved in mentoring and training kids in the field of robotics. “We have organized workshops in Beijing No.4 High School International Campus and RDFZ – 人大附中- Chaoyang International High School, and have been providing our courses as an ASA for the International Montessori School of Beijing (MSB) since September 2019, while starting a new cooperation from next semester with Beanstalk International Bilingual School (BIBS). The mode of cooperation with these schools has been in two distinct ways: we provide a teacher and the content for the ASA courses, or we train their teachers to be able to teach the courses based on the content on our online platform Robociti and the accompanying robotic hardware we provide. We are very eager to work with even more international schools in 2020,” says Stasinopoulos. The future is indeed promising in the world of robotics. As schools continue to embrace it as a necessary subject, schoolkids will undoubtedly turn our sci-fi nightmares into a beautiful futuristic AI reality.
advertisement
What's Hot This Week
Chinese Superstitions 101: Why Red Underwear in the New Year?
Five Hot Springs in Beijing to Keep Your Winter Blues Away
Glide Across Summer Palace’s Ice Skating Rink for Outdoor Fun