The keynote speech will be followed by a panel of distinguished guests, who will offer their unique insights on the ongoing efforts to promote service robots and to facilitate the market creation of this nascent industry.  The panel will be moderated by Mr. Shu Ishiguro, Secretary-General of the Robot Business Promotion Council.  The panel speakers represent three perspectives from Japan, United States, and Europe:

• Mr. Kenji Takenaka, Chairman, Robot Business Promotion Council, Japan
• Ms. Helen Greiner, Chairman & Co-founder of iRobot, United States 
• Mr. Martin Haegele of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering Automation, Germany 

The forum will close with a special presentation by Dr. Alberto Elfes, Principal Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  Dr. Elfes co-founded the Autonomous Robotics Laboratory at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center and leads research in the areas of autonomous planetary exploration and coordination of long-range unmanned space vehicles. 

IREX and the ROBOLink Forum are free to attend if you pre-register.  Registration in English can be accessed by clicking here.  Onsite admission to IREX will cost 1,000 Yen per person.

Following the ROBOLink Forum 2007, JETRO and JARA will host a networking reception.  Participants are invited to attend and meet with other global leaders in robotics.

This event will have simultaneous English-Japanese translation.

JETRO is also pleased to announce a special travel package through Kintetsu International for the 2007 IREX Show in Tokyo.

 Click here for more information.