Piaggio Group: Daniela Rus joins the Piaggio Fast Forward advisory board

Piaggio Group – The Advisory Board of Piaggio Fast Forward (PFF), a company controlled by Piaggio Group and of which it represents the most advanced research center on the mobility of the future, is further enriched with the entry of one of the most important names in robotics research worldwide, Daniela Rus.

"Having Daniela Rus with us is a great honor - commented Michele Colaninno, President of Piaggio Fast Forward -. Daniela is one of the most important researchers in the world in the field of artificial intelligence and human-related robotics, and this corresponds exactly to our ideas at PFF: the intelligence of robots and humans must collaborate, developing a beneficial relationship mutual to create a better world for tomorrow. With Daniela we share the same vision: to offer everyone the opportunity to benefit from our work“. According to Daniela Rus “Piaggio Fast Forward's visionary ideas that underpin Gita are defining a new era of delivery and travel managers. Gita is a robotic platform that will circulate around our cities exchanging data, assisting people and will help us in our work by transporting and delivering goods“. Daniela Rus is Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) and holds the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) also at MIT in Boston. Among her most famous research is that on robots capable of self-configuring to adapt to different environments by autonomously modifying their internal structure. Daniela Rus has also led numerous groundbreaking projects on systems composed of interconnected robots that find applications in transportation, security, environmental monitoring, agriculture and even underwater exploration.

The Piaggio Fast Forward advisory board, already made up of highly relevant figures such as Nicholas Negroponte (founder of the MIT Media Lab), john hoke (Nike Vice President Global Design), Doug Brent (Vice President Technology Innovation of Trimble), Roberto Colaninno (President and CEO of the Piaggio Group) e Jeff Linnell (formerly Director of Robotics and Google of the highest level in the fields of technology, industry, research and design. Last year Piaggio Fast Forward presented the first innovative projects in Boston, Trip e Kilo, intelligent vehicles, capable of moving autonomously, designed to improve the productivity of mobility in increasingly complex urban developments, with a payload of up to 100 kilograms and an autonomy of 20 kilometers in an urban circuit. They can accompany a person, map their surroundings and monitor what is moving around. Furthermore, during 2017 PFF received several important awards for its activity in the robotics field, among which we remember the Disruptive Genius – Company at the MITX Awards 2017 for having distinguished itself "in unconventional innovative thinking, for having been the first to explore new frontiers and for having promoted the innovation economy with its work"; inclusion in the Top 100 Most Innovative and Disruptive construction Companies in the Robotics category by the authoritative international newspaper Disruptor Daily thanks to "Gita's strong technological push" and the prestigious award GOOD DESIGN AWARDS 2017 in the Robotics category thanks to Gita, "considered a revolutionary and visionary project".