ANA Advisory Board Announcement

Jan 24 2019

XPRIZE

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The ANA Avatar XPRIZE continues to ramp up! Since our launch in March 2018, we have been hard at work pursuing partnership development opportunities, conducting research workshops, participating at industry events and conferences around the globe with a focus on team engagement and recruitment and releasing a new version of the Competition Guidelines that provide the full concept and goals for the ANA Avatar XPRIZE. 

Many industry experts contributed to the revamping of these Guidelines and we extend our heartfelt thanks to all those who participated. Several experts will continue to be involved with the competition, serving as members of the ANA Avatar XPRIZE Advisory Board. The inaugural members include esteemed robotics experts, haptics inventors, psychology professors, top entertainment researchers, virtual world creators, computer vision dynamos, and the founder of the Foundation for Responsible Robots. The full list of members can be found below with additional information and bios available on our website

· Aimee van Wynsberghe: Founder, The Foundation for Responsible Robots

· Ashish Kapoor: Principal Researcher with the Aerial Robotics and Informatics group at Microsoft Research

· Gerald Loeb: Chairman of the Board, Syntouch; and Professor at the University of Southern California

· Harry Kloor: Scientist, film producer, director, writer, and entrepreneur; Instrumental in development of the ANA Avatar XPRIZE

· Illah Nourbakhsh: K&L Gates Professor of Ethics and Computational Technologies, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

· Jon Snoddy: Advanced Development Studio Executive SVP at Walt Disney Imagineering

· Martial Hebert: Director, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University 

· Nadia Thalmann: Professor and Director of the Institute for Media Innovation, Nanyang: Technological University, Singapore; Founder and Director of the MIRALab, Geneva, Switzerland

· Philip Rosedale: Inventor, Founder, High Fidelity & Second Life

· Roberta Klatzky: Professor, Department of Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University 

The ANA Avatar Advisory Board will be instrumental in establishing and maintaining the high level of rigor and validity involved in formulating and operating the ANA Avatar XPRIZE. They will be called upon to help recruit experts and judges for the competition, advise on the upcoming competition Rules and Regulations, promote and be ambassadors for this XPRIZE within its diverse communities, and engage in industry development opportunities. With their guidance, we will combine diverse exponential technologies to build a roadmap for bringing Avatars to life – connecting us all in remarkable new ways.

For more competition information, please visit avatar.xprize.org or contact the team at [email protected]

XPRIZE