Daily Business Report-July 8, 2016

Henrik Christensen is leaving his post as executive director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology to come to UC San Diego. (Image: Georgia Institute of Technology)

UC San Diego Snags Top Research

Expert to Lead Robotics Institute

UC San Diego has hired Henrik Christensen, one of the most influential robotics researchers in the world, to direct the UC San Diego Contextual Robotics Institute and serve as a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering.

Christensen is leaving his post as executive director of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology to come to UC San Diego.

As the faculty director of the Contextual Robotics Institute, Christensen said he plans to help the more than 50 faculty members in the institute boost research efforts; expand partnerships with industry; build educational programs at the undergraduate and graduate level; and create new robotics outreach programs for kids. “We are going to do all this better than anyone else in the world,” he said.

In 2011, Christensen was awarded the Joseph F. Engelberger Robotics Award, widely considered the world’s most prestigious robotics honor.

UC San Diego officially launched the Contextual Robotics Institute in October 2015 at the second annual Contextual Robotics Forum.

“Hiring Henrik Christensen is an important step in our multi-year effort to make UC San Diego, Southern California and the international CaliBaja region a global robotics powerhouse,” said Albert P. Pisano, dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

The mission of the Contextual Robotics Institute is to develop safe, useful and human-friendly robotics systems that are deeply integrated with how humans live. Christensen said he plans to double research funding for the institute in the next five years. “We have very aggressive growth targets for the program’s students, faculty and partnerships with industry,” he said.

Over the past three decades, Christensen has established a stellar track record of leading robotics institutes and bringing them to the forefront of the robotics field. Ten years ago, he took over the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Tech. The institute quadrupled its funding during that time and rose to one of the top three robotics programs in the nation. He had similar success building up the Center for Autonomous Systems at Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology as well as the EU Network of Excellence in Robotics.

The opportunities for expanding and strengthening the robotics ecosystem in San Diego are incredible. San Diego is half the cost of Silicon Valley, and the research institutions, the talent, the industry clusters, and the military and government players are all here, explained Christensen.

Christensen said he is looking forward to working with San Diego’s robotics community. “We want to make an economic impact and make sure that we are solving problems that industry is interested in,” he said.

“One of the next frontiers in engineering is connecting the Internet to the physical world,” he said. “This will happen through robotics.”

Research and Biography

Christensen is a leader in the setting of national policy for the field of robotics and has testified before Congress on the subject. He is the head of a nationwide effort to draft a robotics roadmap for the future and explore the field’s potential to transform U.S. society via new markets and industries; create new jobs; and address issues of national importance. He served as the founding chairman of the European Robotics Research Network, now a community of more than 230 research groups in academia and industry.

Christensen’s own research covers computer vision, artificial intelligence and robotics, and his primary emphasis has been on a systems-oriented approach to machine perception, robotics and design of intelligent machines. He has worked with a number of industry partners, including Boeing, KUKA, iRobot, BMW and Apple.

“We are trying to solve real problems with real solutions,” he said.

Christensen has published more than 300 works in the field of robotics, vision and artificial intelligence. He and his team seek solutions that are theoretically sound, with well-defined implementations that can be evaluated in realistic situations.

Christensen has worked on a wide range of projects, from helping Boeing increase its production rates for manufacturing to iRobot’s defense-focused robots. He was part of a team that developed the world’s first autonomous vacuum cleaner, called the Trilobite, in Sweden in the mid-1990s to early 2000s.

In a distinguished lecture in late May on the UC San Diego campus, Christensen explored his research on a model-based vision for robot applications. “As robotic systems are moving from well-controlled environments to unstructured environments, they are required to operate in highly dynamic and cluttered scenes,” noted Christensen, going on to highlight his work in addressing three outstanding challenges. “Those challenges include clutter in the background; handling both textured and textureless objects; and how to deal with discontinuities during the tracking of an object.”

In addition to the 300+ journal articles and conference papers, Christensen has published more than 30 book chapters and at least 15 books (as editor or co-editor). He also serves on six editorial boards of leading publications in robotics and pattern recognition, and is the editor in chief of Trends and Foundations in Robotics. In 2013 Christensen was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and later a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 2015.

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Nominations Sought for 40th Annual

Orchids & Onions Awards Program

The San Diego Architectural Foundation is accepting nominations for its 40th annual Orchids & Onions awards program, which recognize the best (and worst) in architectural design, form and function in five categories.

“Great design and great development create great neighborhoods,” said Pauly De Bartolo, San Diego Architectural Foundation president and principal with De Bartolo + Rimanic Design Studio. “This is a critical time as San Diego debates how to accommodate future growth and considers several landmark projects. Everybody should come out and voice their opinion about what they think represents a good built environment.”

The five categories:

• Architecture

• Landscape Architecture

• Historic Preservation

• Interior Design

• Miscellaneous (public art, lighting, graphics, etc

Members of the public are encouraged to nominate the local development projects they admire (or loathe) by posting photos of the projects with a description online at orchidssnfonions.org. Nominations close July 31.

The public can vote online for the “People’s Choice Orchid & Onion” starting Sept. 1. Other projects will be judged by a jury, including, for the first time, a high school student from the ACE Mentorship Program.

To be eligible, projects must be non-residential or include at least four residential units and must have been built in the last three years. Single family homes will not be considered.

The awardees will be announced at a reception and awards ceremony on Oct. 13 at Horton Plaza Park and Spreckels Theatre.

SDAF will publish a book documenting selected awardees from the past 40 years.

 

Parallel Capital Partners Completes $2.5M

Renovation at The Elements of Wateridge

Parallel Capital Partners Inc. has completed a $2.5 million capital improvement program at The Elements at Wateridge — a three-building Class A office complex spanning 278,787 square feet at 10201, 10221 and 10241 Wateridge Circle in San Diego’s Sorrento Mesa neighborhood.

The San Diego-based real estate investment firm also announced that new tenants there —Ntrepid, Amobee Inc. and Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. — have collectively leased nearly 40,000 square feet in newly refurbished space, representing deals valued at more than $7 million.

Matt Root, CEO of Parallel Capital Partners, said his firm acquired the five-story buildings in 2014. Over the last year, the nearly eight-acre property has undergone extensive upgrades to include completely redone common areas, new landscaping incorporating seating areas adjacent to water features and newly painted exteriors.

Specifics of the deals include:

• Ntrepid, a provider of cutting-edge cyber security solutions, leased 15,000 square feet of new office space at 10201 Wateridge Circle Suite 300 for 65 months.

• Amobee Inc., a global marketing technology company, leased 18,022 square feet space at 10201 Wateridge Circle Suite 400/500, securing a 65-month term.

• Daiichi Sankyo Inc., a Japan-based leader in the research, development and marketing of pharmaceuticals, leased 6,229 square feet for 60 months at 10201 Wateridge Circle, Suite 240.

For the renovations, Pacific Building Group was general contractor and LdG Landscape Architects designed the landscaping. LPA, Inc. & Hurkes Harris Design Associates handled architecture.

 

Air Force Selects Enlisted Airmen to

Undergo Global Hawk Training Course

ExecutiveGov

The U.S. Air Force has selected 10 enlisted airmen to participate in an October RQ-4 Global Hawk pilot training course as part of an initiative to develop future operating concepts within the service branch’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance enterprise.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk is an unmanned aircraft built by Northrop Grumman to provide global all-weather, day or night intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support for joint combatant forces in worldwide peacetime, contingency and wartime operations.

The Air Force said Wednesday it expects the first batch of enlisted airmen to graduate from the course in 2017 and upon completion undergo the same training the branch’s remotely-piloted aircraft pilots tackle in terms of flight training, rules and responsibilities.

According to the Air Force, new enlisted pilots will undergo undergraduate training on how to fly DA-20 Falcon units, as well as RPA instrument qualification and Fundamentals courses and Global Hawk basic qualification programs.

 

Six-Acre Rancho Santa Fe Estate

Scheduled for Auction on Aug. 11

A Rancho Santa Fe home built on six acres and featuring six bedrooms,  a vineyard and horse pasture, a private gym and pool with a swim-up bar will be auctioned on Aug. 11 by New York City-based Concierge Auctions.

The property, originally offered for $19.9 million, will sell without reserve in cooperation with K. Ann Brizolis of Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty.

Other features in the home include 17th century fireplaces, reclaimed timbers, large-format marble and wide-plank French oak floors, and a private horse trail easement leading to more than 40 miles of equestrian trails.

The estate is located at 18127 Via Roswitha.

For more information on the property, click here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The results are in.  SD METRO Magazine’s list of Best Doctors ® San Diego is coming in the July issue of the magazine.  The list will provide access to the best medical minds in the community. You can be sure you’re getting the right diagnosis, the right treatment, and the right care from the innovative professionals.

Gallup has audited and certified Best Doctors Inc.’s database of physicians and its companion The Best Doctors in America List as using the highest industry standards survey methodology and processes.

These lists are excerpted from The Best Doctors in America  2015-2016

database, which includes over 40,000 U.S. doctors in more than 40 medical specialties and 400 subspecialties. The Best Doctors in America database is compiled and maintained by Best Doctors Inc..

SD METRO is proud to present San Diego’s Best Doctors in our July issue.