President’s Report by Marina Bill

Great events ahead

Dear Reader,

The year has started on a cautiously optimistic note for the robotics industry. Supply chain disruptions are slowly fading out and order books are filled. The robotics community is eagerly preparing for the upcoming trade shows and conferences in the second quarter of the year.

On May 22-25, Automate will open its doors in Detroit, co-hosting the ISR Americas. On the second day, the Executive Roundtable jointly organized by IFR and A3 will look at "The future of manufacturing in North America“. And on Wednesday, the prestigious Engelberger Awards ceremony will take place. This year's winners are Roberta Nelson Shea from Universal Robots and Jeff Burnstein from A3. Congrats to both!

IFR will use this industry gathering to hold a set of meetings, including its General Assembly, Robot Suppliers' Committee and Marcom Committee Meetings.

On June 1, a jury of IEEE RAS and IFR representatives will choose the next IERA award winner (Innovation & Entrepreneurship Award for Outstanding Achievements in Commercializing Innovative Robot and Automation Technology), in the IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation during the ICRA conference in London.

From June 27 to 30, the robotics industry has the next opportunity to gather at an international trade fair, as Automatica will take place in Munich. Another IFR Executive Roundtable will theme around “Building resilience for Europe through automation”. IFR will also host its Service Robots Group meeting during the fair.

Both roundtables will gather executives from leading robot suppliers and end users. We will use these occasions to publish the latest preliminary figures on the global robotics market for 2022 and provide an outlook on trends from industry perspective. The events are open to the media, investors, roboticists, customers and all interested in robotics. Looking forward to meeting you there.

Marina Bill
IFR President