A gathering of the global community of robotics and operations experts will advance the best practices for scaling the use of autonomous robots across industries

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - December 8, 2021 - The Robot Operations Group, a global community of the top experts in scaling the application of advanced robotics, today announced the first-ever RobOpsCon will take place in October 2022 in Silicon Valley. The conference will bring together practitioners and a leading panel of multi-disciplinary speakers across industries, including logistics, supply chain, agriculture, hospitality and healthcare. Additional details will be announced shortly.

The Robot Operations Group, or ROG (pronounced "rogue") has been meeting virtually for more than two years, with occasional in-person meetings as the pandemic allowed. With almost 150 members based across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, the group's monthly virtual meetings and RobOps Masters interviews have included renowned experts such as Aaron Prather from FedEx, Lawrence Ibarria of Verdant Robotics and Daniel Theobald, Chief Innovation Officer and founder of Vecna Robotics.

The group's Robot Operations Manifesto, an open-source document with contributions from many of its members, outlines the best practices for robot operations at scale. With RobOpsCon 2022, the growing community will have an opportunity to meet in person, learn from each other and explore the benefits of robotics in a broad range of applications, from material handling to agriculture to cleaning and sanitization.

"Being part of this community is a great way to realize the value of robotics," said Florian Pestoni, CEO and co-founder of InOrbit and co-founder of ROG. "There are plenty of online groups and conferences for roboticists to learn how to build a robot, but there wasn't one for people focused on scaling robots from 5 to 5,000 and beyond. Until now."

At a recent Association for Advancing Automation (A3) AMR & Logistics conference in Memphis, TN, several ROG members met at an event sponsored by InOrbit and A3. The rapid exchange of ideas, the shared pain points and the different perspectives resulted in a lively discussion. RobOpsCon 2022 aims to take this to the next level.

"I was an active participant in conferences such as LISA, where systems administrators could learn from each other," said Joe Wieciek, director of technical operations at Outrider and co-founder of ROG. "But when I transitioned from more traditional cloud systems to robotics, I found this was missing. With RobOpsCon 2022, we are continuing that tradition and helping people manage large robot fleets."

"ROG has always enabled me to connect with innovators in the robot industry at an informal level. It's not commercial, but the connections have opened a wealth of collaborative opportunities," said Aldus von der Burg, CEO of Meili Robots and a ROG member based in Copenhagen. "RobOpsCon will be a chance for those in the industry, or even just curious about robot operations, to discuss and learn as a part of a growing and supportive robotics community."

Participation in ROG's Meetup group and monthly virtual meetings is free and open to everyone. Tickets for RobOpsCon will be available in June 2022 for the October event.

For more information on RobOpsCon, please visit robops.org/robopscon2022.

About Robot Operations Group
ROG (pronounced "rogue") is a cross-industry group aimed at developing and sharing best practices to advance the operation of autonomous robots at scale. With almost 150 members and growing rapidly, the group meets monthly online and has published the open source Robot Operations Manifesto.