{"id":578340,"date":"2024-04-29T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.therobotreport.com\/?p=578340"},"modified":"2024-04-26T23:06:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T03:06:30","slug":"female-robotics-founders-discuss-industry-journeys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therobotreport.com\/female-robotics-founders-discuss-industry-journeys\/","title":{"rendered":"Female robotics founders discuss their journeys in the industry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Left)<\/a>

Left: Vivian Chu and Andrea Thomaz, the co-founders of Diligent Robotics; right: Kathleen Brandes and Ros Shinkle, the co-founders of Adagy Robotics. | Sources: Diligent Robotics, Adagy Robotics<\/p><\/div>\n

Almost half of all startups that began in 2021 were formed by women, according to human resources cloud software company Gusto. Within the robotics industry, however, it’s a different story. Women make up only 34% of the STEM workforce, according to the National Girls Collaborative Project, and they hold only 16% of robotics and engineering roles. <\/p>\n

Those numbers, however, don’t tell us how many women start robotics companies. There isn’t a lot of data about the number of startups that begin every year or how many robotics companies are operating, in general. Let alone about the backgrounds of the founders behind them. <\/p>\n

To get a picture of how many women are founders of robotics companies, I combed through our 2024 February<\/a> and March<\/a> funding recaps. Of the 78 robotics companies that raised money during those two months, and whose founders could be identified, only 10 had a woman on their founding team, just 12.8%.<\/p>\n

Of course, this metric doesn’t tell us how many robotics companies in general have female founders, but it does give us a better idea of what that breakdown might look like. This is why I spoke to Ros Shinkle and Kathleen Brandes, the founders of Adagy Robotics<\/a>, and Andrea Thomaz and Vivian Chu, the founders of Diligent Robotics<\/a>, about their experiences within the industry. <\/p>\n

Founders talk about the early days of a startup<\/h2>\n

Diligent and Adagy are in two very different places as companies. Adagy launched earlier this year, and it specializes in remote<\/a> intervention services. Shinkle and Brandes are at the beginning of their journey as founders and are part of<\/a> Y Combinator, a startup accelerator. They’re currently the only employees of the company. <\/p>\n

\u201cAdagy Robotics is currently a remote intervention service for rescuing robots,” said Brandes, the company’s chief technology officer (CTO).<\/p>\n

“For example, when a tractor robot fails in the field, instead of calling out to the farmer who has a lot more important things to do in his day, that tractor robot can now call out to our trained operators,” she said. “They\u2019ll take over, drive the robot to safety, and allow it to resume its autonomous operations.”<\/p>\n

Adagy looks to a future with AI<\/h2>\n

Today, Adagy Robotics is starting out with fully human-driven operations, said Shinkle, CEO. In the future, however, the company is interested in layering machine learning and generative AI<\/a> techniques to assist human operators and allow them to do their jobs more efficiently. The company is also exploring error-prevention techniques for robots. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really excited about logistics<\/a> and manufacturing<\/a> right now,” Shinkle said. “In particular, I think AMRs [autonomous mobile robots<\/a>] are widely used in logistics. And although they\u2019re widely used, they still continue to face the same kinds of problems.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“For example, they often rely on these sort of dense visual clues called fiducials or APR tags to help localize in a facility,” she noted. “If one of those is scuffed or torn or falls down, the robots can get lost. This is a great example of a situation in which we could come in and help the robots get back safely. We\u2019re also excited about manipulation and failed picking tasks as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Shinkle and Brandes described the early days of running a startup as challenging but fun. Every day is about putting out the most urgent fire, said Shinkle.<\/p>\n

\"Adagy

Ros Shinkle and Kathleen Brandes, the founders of Adagy Robotics, met at Boston Dynamics. Source: Y Combinator<\/p><\/div>\n

Bringing a startup to maturity <\/h2>\n

On the other hand, Diligent Robotics<\/a> was founded in 2017. Like many robotics companies, Diligent started in a research lab. Thomaz, the company\u2019s co-founder and CEO, was running a robotics lab that Chu, its co-founder and CTO, joined as a Ph.D. student in 2012. <\/span><\/p>\n

The start of the company was slow, Thomaz said. She was still a professor and Chu a graduate student. Tomaz\u2019s lab earned two National Science Foundation grants that gave Tomaz and Chu the opportunity to learn from around 150 people in the healthcare<\/a> industry. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that we would have been able to start this company as two men,\u201d Thomaz said. \u201cBecause the thing that we did, for two years at least, was go and embed ourselves in nursing teams, with a robot, and ask nurses, who are 80% women, ‘What would you have this robot do?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure we would have been as accepted in that community as a couple of guys with their robot,\u201d she continued. <\/span><\/p>\n

Once they had found a use case that would address the needs of the industry, Thomaz and Chu said they spent a summer pitching and looking for venture capital. In total, Thomaz said they spent a year and a half in the research stage before officially launching the company.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last year, Diligent hit 90 robots working in the field. Its flagship robot, Moxi, aids hospital staffers by performing non-patient-facing tasks like running supplies, delivering lab samples, fetching items from a central supply, distributing personal protective equipment (PPE), and delivering medications. Moxi is now opening 100,000 doors every month across its various deployments.<\/p>\n

Diligent is dedicated to diversity<\/h2>\n

As Diligent Robotics has grown, Thomaz and Chu said they’ve actively tried to keep the company diverse. <\/p>\n

\u201cEarly on, we recognized that it\u2019s not only important to have a diverse team, but to have a diverse team at all levels,\u201d Thomaz said. \u201cIt\u2019s really good to make sure that your most junior people aren\u2019t the most diverse, and then your more senior people are all one type of person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chu also said the team focused on making job postings well-known among all intersections of the robotics community, instead of just relying on the applications that passively came in. Shinkle echoed similar sentiments when talking about building Adagy’s team as it grows. <\/span><\/p>\n

“We believe that diversity is a strength,” Shinkle said. “Diversity of background and diversity of thought leads to stronger problem solving, so that’s definitely a closely held company belief.” <\/p>\n