AI & Autonomy: From Research to Robots

Join us for an evening exploring how modern AI systems are reshaping robotics, from high-level reasoning models to fully autonomous mobile platforms operating in the real world.

This event brings together academic research and industry deployment to show how perception, language, and autonomy connect inside real robotic systems.

Dr. Sanja Damjanovic is an AI educator and researcher who loves making complex ideas practical and usable. As an adjunct professor at SJSU, she teaches graduate courses in deep learning and generative AI and serves on the IEEE expert committee on future megatrends. Sanja focuses on helping professionals understand AI clearly, apply it confidently, and communicate it effectively in their careers.

Vision-Language Models (VLMs) are rapidly changing how robots perceive, reason about, and interact with the physical world. By grounding visual perception in natural language, these models enable robots to move beyond fixed pipelines toward more flexible, goal-driven behavior, bridging the gap between sensing and decision-making. This talk introduces VLMs from a robotics-first perspective, focusing on how they can be used as high-level reasoning modules for embodied agents. We will explore how images, language, and actions are connected in modern robotics systems and how VLMs enable capabilities such as task specification in natural language, scene understanding, affordance reasoning, and closed-loop planning. The session includes a beginner-friendly live Google Colab tutorial demonstrating a minimal but complete VLM-based pipeline. Rather than focusing on model training or complex mathematics, the talk emphasizes system design, practical trade-offs, and integration patterns relevant to real robotic platforms and simulators.

Prachi is a Developer Relations Engineer at OpenMind. She loves building open-source tools and communities as they make it easy for people to explore ideas, learn together, and build things that actually work in the real world.

OpenMind's Live Demo

OpenMind is building open-source, hardware-agnostic software for robots. Join us for a live demo of the Unitree Go2 running BrainPack, showcasing real-time mapping, navigation, face detection, and auto-charging. See how open source software is enabling robots to operate independently in the real world.

This event is designed for students, new grads, robotics engineers, AI practitioners, researchers, and technical leaders who want to understand how cutting-edge AI integrates into modern robotic systems, from research concepts to deployed autonomy.

A special thanks to our event venue sponsors: InOrbit Robotspace, Mountain View, CA.

Networking before and after the talks. Come for the tech, stay for the community.

Info: Arrive, grab a snack, and connect with fellow robotics engineers, AI practitioners, researchers, and students.

Info: Introduction to Women in Robotics – Bay Area and overview of the evening.

Info: An in-depth talk and live demo exploring how modern AI systems connect perception, language, and action in embodied agents.

Info: A live demonstration of open-source, hardware-agnostic autonomy software running on a Unitree Go2 robot, featuring real-time mapping, navigation, and autonomous behaviors.

Info: Connect with speakers and attendees, continue discussions, and explore the robots in the space.

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