Dario Floreano Keynote Speaker

Professor Dario Floreano is director of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). He is also founder and director of the Swiss National Center of Competence in Robotics, which funds collaborative research and technology transfer in wearable and mobile robots.

Dario has held research positions at Sony, at Caltech/JPL, and at Harvard University. He pursues research in robotics and A.I. with the goal of making machines more life-like and bridging the gap between humans and machines. He is a recognized pioneer of Evolutionary Robots that autonomously co-evolve bodies and brains, of Autonomous Drones that safely fly in confined spaces and near humans, and of Soft Robots that redefine the mechanical and control foundations of robots of the future. He is currently interested in extending human experience and collaboration with wearable technologies and robots.

Dario has published more than 350 articles, tens of patents, and 4 books on Artificial Neural Networks (Il Mulino), Evolutionary Robotics (MIT Press), Bioinspired Artificial Intelligence (MIT Press), and Bio-inspired Flying Robots (Springer Verlag). His work has been cited more than 15,000 times, covered worldwide by hundreds of international media, including CNN, BCC, National Geographic, and has inspired the book Prey by best-selling novelist Michal Crichton (author of Jurassic Park).

Dario Floreano is on the Advisory Board of Future and Emergent Technologies of the European Commission, has been a founding member of the World Economic Forum Council on robotics and smart devices,is co-founder of the International Society of Artificial Life, Inc., and executive board member of the International Society for Neural Networks. He has spun off two robotics companies: senseFly (now part of the Parrot Group), which has become a world leader in imaging drones for professionals, and Flyability, which produces a game-changing drone for close inspection of confined spaces.