New partnership to enhance student experience in the service robots industry
If you see a robot roaming the hallways this fall, stop and say hello to Georgie, the college’s first service robot.
George Brown College (GBC) is looking for ways to focus on this trend and that’s why it has partnered with a robotic solutions provider, GlobalDWS, and Autonetics Universe, a leader in Canadian innovation specializing in service robots.
“This is an opportunity for GBC to experiment with service robots and for us to understand what they are capable of,” said Dr Rick Huijbregts, vice president of strategy and innovation at the college.
The purpose of the college with this partnership is to be a part of the leading edge, shape the market by taking proactive initiative and teach students about this technology to prepare them for the future.
Teaching and educating students for future jobs is one of the priorities of the college.
Service robots the industry will be reaching $30 billion dollars market value and there will be a need for a workforce that knows how to build, service, maintain and teach robots.
This means there is going to be a new demand for jobs in the sector of service robots.
“We think we have an opportunity to create a workforce of the future that works in the service industry market.” said Huijbregts.
The college is also seeking ways to use service robots in its services for instance at the student services centre to enhance students’ experience.
In the near future, it is possible for students to type their student ID, or swipe their student card and get information about their classes, grades and even get advice for their next steps in their academic career.
Service robots are a combination of artificial intelligence and robotics that help people in service environments by interacting with them.
These kinds of robots are used in a variety of places such as banks, restaurants, coffee shops, airports and schools.
Their biggest difference from industrial robots is that service robots have to interact with people to perform useful tasks.
“I don’t believe service robots replace humans, I think service robots are going to replace mundane, boring tasks of what we do in our jobs but allowing the humans to focus on high-value high-quality more human and high-interactive activities.” said Huijbregts.
“I think we are going to see a future, where people will work with robots rather than that robots, are going to take over our jobs,” he said. “There is a huge opportunity to really re-imagine how we deliver services on how we make personalized experiences with this technology.”
