Innorobo attracts top range leaders, pioneers and researchers with international prominence.

LYON, France - November 20, 2012 - Innorobo, the European summit dedicated to service robotics, today announced the first of its confirmed keynote speakers for the 2013 conference, taking place March 19-21 in Lyon, France.

Innorobo sets the scene for the world's biggest robotics event. The 2013 conference and exhibition will have more than 120 companies from 14 different countries. Each year the event pays tribute to a guest country and in 2013, the United States has been selected to be honored.

Innorobo conferences are organized in cooperation with Thesame Innovation, a European mechatronic cluster (http://www.thesame-innovation.com) and INNOROBO is also the local host to the European Robotics Forum, organized by EURobotics (http://www.eurobotics-project.eu/).

Innorobo attracts top range leaders, pioneers and researchers with international prominence. As robotics is multi-disciplinary, Innorobo gathers experts in diverse disciplines from design to engineering through anthropology, electronics, artificial intelligence and much more. A complete list of speakers will be announced in January 2013.

"We believe it is time to have real discussions about Robotics. One of the key factors to success for the service robotics market, to keep up with its promised exponential growth, is to create the dynamism of an ecosystem at large. For three days at INNOROBO, research labs, start-ups, investors and international industrial groups will share their perspectives and enrich each others' innovative solutions to our major societal challenges," said Catherine Simon, Founder, Innoecho, the company owning and organizing INNOROBO. "It is an exciting time for Robotics".

Confirmed speakers and topics to date are:

· Bruno Bonnell, Syrobo - Opening ceremony

· Hugh Herr, iWalk Inc. / MIT - Robotics and Health

· Dmitry Grishin, Grishin Robotics, Mail.Ru Group - Business and Investment in Robotics

Bruno Bonnell, a renowned high tech international multi-entrepreneur, is pioneering the service robotics market in Europe. He is the president of Syrobo, the French trade association for robotics, at the initiative of the first INNOROBO event. A qualified chemical engineer, Bonnell received a degree in economics at the Universit© Paris IX. He began his long career on the Thomson TO7, one of the earliest French-produced home computers, before founding Infogrames/Atari (international video games company). He has been chairman and chief creative officer of the company during nearly 25 years. Since 2006, Bonnell has been living for his passion of Robotics and Robopolis, a Lyon-based company and European leader in service robotics. He also shares his vision through two R & D companies (POB Technology and Awabot) working on robotic platforms (hardware and software) dedicated to the world of education and entertainment market.

Bruno Bonnell is at the initiative of the first European fund dedicated to robotics, Robolution Capital, which contributes to consolidating a dynamic industrial base by supporting innovative robotics companies in the financing of their development.

Hugh Herr is one of the leading pioneers of robotics in the US. As associate professor and director of the Biomechatronics group at The MIT Media Lab, Herr focuses on developing physically assistive technologies that will be intimate extensions of the human body-structurally, neurologically, and dynamically. A double amputee himself, Herr is the holder (or co-holder) of 14 patents related to assistive devices, including those for a computer-controlled artificial knee, commercially available as the Rheo Knee, an active ankle-foot orthosis, and the world's first powered ankle-foot prosthesis. The powered foot and ankle is being commercially produced by iWalk, a Media Lab spinoff company, of which Herr is founder and chief scientific officer. The computer-controlled knee was named one of TIME magazine's Top Ten Inventions in 2004; the robotic ankle-foot prosthesis was named to the same list in 2007.

Dmitry Grishin is considered one of the most successful young entrepreneurs in Russia. He founded Grishin Robotics, first international investment company, dedicated to consumer robotics in 2012 and co-founded Mail.Ru Group, biggest internet-company in the Russian-speaking world, in 2005. Currently, he also serves as CEO & Board Chairman at the Mail.Ru Group, now a public company.

In addition to being head of the department of Information Technologies and Programming at St. Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, his passion for innovation led him to found the Russian Code Cup - the largest competition for programmers in Eastern Europe. Through the Code Cup and other projects, he continues to foster growth in the technology sector worldwide.

About Innorobo

In just a few years, the world of service robotics has become a major growth sector of the economy. INNOROBO « Innovation Robotic Summit » is a unique opportunity to meet the international players from research labs, industrial and service companies, technology start-ups, finance and investment organizations, the political sphere, or civil society. In a single location and through multiple conferences and exhibitions, the various fields of service robotics are revealed and decrypted: health robotics, educational robotics, entertainment robotics, robotics transport, personal assistance robotics and more. For more information, please visit www.innorobo.com or follow Innorobo on Twitter at @innorobo or Facebook. Innorobo is produced by INNOECHO, which is dedicated to the acceleration of emerging ecosystems, driving growth through innovation.