Daily Archives: July 18, 2017

Team Gambia at the First Global Challenge 2017, an international robotics event. Left to right: Sellou Jallow, Fatoumata Ceesay, Khadijatou Gassama, Ebrima Marong and Alieu Bah. Shelby Knowles/NPR hide caption

It was a story that made headlines around the world.

An all-girl team from Afghanistan applied for visas to come to the First Global Challenge, an international robotics competition taking place in Washington, D.C. this week.

And their visa request was denied.

They weren't the only team to face visa hurdles. The team from Gambia two girls and three boys was also denied when they first applied.

"Having no hope to come, we still worked," says the team's captain, 18-year-old Alieu Bah. "We never give up, no matter how hard the condition is. That's how we pushed and pushed and pushed until we finally reapplied and got our visa, and here we are now."

The opening ceremony at the First Global Challenge 2017. Shelby Knowles/NPR hide caption

The opening ceremony at the First Global Challenge 2017.

The Afghanistan team got its visas as well. Now both teams are in Washington, D.C., for the contest. Each of the roughly 160 national teams participates in several matches, hoping their robots earn the most points.

We spoke to the members of team Gambia to see what it's like to plunge into the world of robotics in their country where 48.4 percent of the population lives in poverty and what it's like to be a girl in the male-dominated world of science and technology.

None of the team members had any experience building robots before this competition, says Khadijatou Gassama.

"We didn't have anyone to help us with the design," she says, adding that the team watched videos and followed a guide provided by First Global to learn how to make their robot.

Khadijatou Gassama of team Gambia. Shelby Knowles/NPR hide caption

Khadijatou Gassama of team Gambia.

The theme of this first-time competition is "water issues." The Gambian team's robot, a cube-shaped device about the size of a large microwave, is designed to separate balls that represent water particles and balls that represent water contaminants and deliver them to different places.

Gassama and Fatoumata Ceesay are the two girls on Gambia's team. It's their first time in the U.S. They're both relatively soft-spoken but seemed confident as they interacted with their teammates. The girls spent some of their free time between matches working with their teammates to fine-tune their robot.

Gassama says she loves physics because it requires thinking outside of the box, coming up with new ideas and inventing new things. The 17-year-old's skill in physics led her professor to recommend her for the robotics team.

"It may not be complex, but I think it's efficient enough to take part in the competition," Gassama says of the team's robot. She graduated from high school this year and hopes to study nanotechnology. She's not planning to start college this fall it's too expensive, she says but instead wants to do an internship.

Both girls would like to inspire more young women in their home country to get into robotics.

"The [girls] that do not have it in mind can change their minds, because it's very interesting," says Ceesay, 17. She also graduated from high school this year.

Fatoumata Ceesay of team Gambia displays her country's flag at the First Global Challenge. Shelby Knowles/NPR hide caption

Fatoumata Ceesay of team Gambia displays her country's flag at the First Global Challenge.

Gambia, along with many other countries, still has a STEM gender gap.

As of 2011, about 20 percent of the country's researchers are female, according to a UNESCO report. That's better than Saudi Arabia and Nepal and comparable to the Netherlands (24 percent) and France (26 percent).

Hamba Manneh, charge d'affaires at the Gambian embassy in Washington, D.C., says the Gambian government makes an effort to include girls in all its government-sponsored events.

"If you neglect half of your population, you are likely to fail in any undertaking," he says. "Girls are very smart, they're just as smart as their boy counter[parts], so that's why they should always be center stage."

That's a sentiment shared by the young women at the competition. Laura Ortiz, a 10th grader on the Chilean team, says, "Many say that engineering and robotics are for men, and places like salons are for women. But I feel we all have equal rights to do what we like."

Gassama hopes she and Ceesay will inspire other Gambian girls to become interested in technology and look for solutions to some of Gambia's problems such as getting access to clean water for everyone.

"Especially during the rainy season, it's very terrible," she says. "Most of the places have boreholes and during the rainy season those have rubbish. People find it very, very difficult to get clean water."

"That is why more girls should get involved in this kind of stuff, because it's really, really important," she adds. "We want to build our nation, to make it a better place to live."

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Meet The Other Robotics Team That Almost Didn't Make It To The Competition - NPR

After years of research and development, Reach Robotics has closed a $7.5 million Series A, co-led byKoreaInvestment Partners (KiP) and IGlobe, to bring its augmented reality bots to market in a big way. The Bristol-based startup is looking to expand into the U.S., and the team is exploring opportunities for growth into other European and Asian markets.

Reach Robotics first product, MekaMon, launched last fall. Todays round comes after the company produced and sold an initial run of 500 of its four-legged, crab-like, bots. MekaMon fits into an emerging category of smartphone-enabled augmented reality toys like Anki.

Silas Adekunle, CEO of Reach Robotics, tells me the influx of capital will be used to make some strategic hires and increase brand recognition through marketing. This is the first time the startup has announced a funding round. Adekunle tells me his experience raising capital wasnt easy; as they say, hardware is hard.

It was hard to pitch in our early days because people didnt believe, explained Adekunle.

MekaMon sits somewhere between toy and full-fledged robot. Unlike the radio-controlled RadioShack robots of yesteryear, MekaMon costs a hefty $329. At first glance this can be hard to swallow, but Adekunle remains adamant that he is building a platform and not a line of toys think PS4 instead of an expensive, single-use robot collecting dust on a shelf.

Outside of retail sales, another avenue for the company to make money is through partnerships within the entertainment industry. Adekunle says that Reach would never go out of its way to deliver a specific product for a client, but he always keeps an eye out for overlap where a partnership could occur with minimal operational changes.

People are taken aback that something could be this realistic, asserts Adekunle. If you strip back the product and lose that, then you dont have an innovative company.

Because Reach is selling software-enabled hardware, it has the opportunity to collect all sorts of interesting data that it can use to fine-tune its products. The startup is able to track retention in aggregate and look at how people actually use their robots. Moreover, if MekaMon suffers leg failure, Reach can analyze indicators like temperature readings and torque.

Adekunle insists on keeping the Reach Robotics team interdisciplinary one employee helped shape the way robots move in the Transformers movie series. This same team is focused on empowering the next group of developers who will build on the MekaMon platform and create new use cases, beyond the companys initial vision for the product.

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Reach Robotics closes $7.5M Series A for its augmented reality bots ... - TechCrunch

NBCNews.com

Afghan Girls Robotics Team Arrives in US Intervention from Trump NBCNews.com Afghan Girls Robotics Team Arrives in U.S. Intervention from Trump. Sun, Jul 16. A robotics team of six girls from Afghanistan arrived at an international high school robotics competition in Washington, D.C. Sunday after clearing visa obstacles that ... White House unveils 'Made in America' week, though many Trump products are made overseasWashington Post all 600 news articles »

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Afghan Girls Robotics Team Arrives in US Intervention from Trump - NBCNews.com

Many industry experts believe that the robotic surgery marketis on the cusp of a dramatic expansion. For example, a recent report from marketsandmarkets.com predicts that the market will grow from $4.9 billion in 2016 to nearly $13 billion by 2021. Naturally, a market of that size has attracted the attention of several companies that want to get in on the action.

However, only a few companies have succeeded in bringing a robotic surgery system to market thus far. Mazor Robotics (NASDAQ:MZOR)is one of those few businesses. The company currently boasts two surgical systems for sale -- the Renaissance and Mazor X -- both of which help surgeons perform spine and brain procedures. With a worldwide install base of more than 150 systems, Mazor has established itself as the lead husky in its field. But with lots of competition on the way, should investors be fearful?

Image source: Mazor Robotics.

Your first instinct might be to assume that Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ:ISRG) is the company's main opponent, since it is the pioneer in the use of robots during surgery. However, Intuitive's da Vinci is primarilydesigned for use ingynecological, urological, and general surgeryprocedures, not procedures involving bones. Since Mazor's products are exclusively focused on fixing problems with the spine and brain, there actually isn't any direct competition between the two -- at least not yet.

Instead of Intuitive, Mazor's investors need to keep their eyes trained on companies likeZimmer Biomet Holdings (NYSE:ZBH)andGlobus Medical (NYSE:GMED), both of which are focused on developing robotic products that could be used forspine and brain surgeries. That's a much more direct competitive threat.

Image source: Zimmer Biomet.

Zimmer Biomet, in particular, made a big move into the space last year through its acquisition of MedTech SA. Medtech was the original developer of the ROSA robot, which is a robotic arm that has received regulatory approval in both the U.S. and EU for spine and brain surgeries. Just like Mazor's products, ROSA is designed to help surgeons increase their accuracy and precision with screw and implant placement. So far, a few dozen ROSA systems have been sold and are actively being used.

Globus Medical is a little bit further behind Zimmer with its robotic surgical system rollout, but that could be changing soon. The company's Excelsius GPS system is similarly focused on spine and brain procedures and has already received regulatory clearance in Europe. However, the company suffered a setback earlier this year after the FDA rejected its 510(k) application. Globus is still committed to moving forward with the product in the U.S. as soon as possible and is in active discussions with the agency to make that happen before the end of the year.

Other potential competitors includeStryker Corporation,which entered the robotic surgery arena in 2013 with its buyout of Mako Surgical. While the Mako is primarily used forhip and knee procedures, the company has a lot of direct experience with diseases of the bone. That could go a long way toward helping it enter the spine and brain markets if it chooses.

It would also be a mistake to completely rule out Intuitive Surgical as a competitor. Intuitive certainly has the resources, technology, and footprint to make inroads in the spine and brain markets down the road if it wanted. You could also potentially add NuVasive orJohnson & Johnsonand Alphabet's Verb Surgical to the mix, too.

Add it all up, and it is likely that surgeons will have at least three different vendors to choose from by the end of the year -- and possibly even more over time. That means that the competition between these systems is about to get very serious.

Given all of the potential competition from these well-funded companies, it might be natural to assume that Mazor is toast. However, I can think of at least three reasons why investors should still stick with Mazor from here.

First, there's no doubt that Mazor is the first mover and top dog in its field. The company's products have been used by hundreds of surgeons, and more than 24,000 procedures have been performed since its launch. In addition, more than 40 peer-reviewed articles have been published touting the benefits of Mazor's systems. This battle-tested history should help to give it a leg up on winning over new doctors.

Next, the company's partnership with Medtronic (NYSE:MDT)is another major advantage. Medtronic isone of the largest medical device companies in the world, and it has developed deep relationships with the surgical community over the last few decades. Adding Medtronic's brand name and marketing muscle should greatly help with the commercialization of the Mazor X and Renaissance system.

Finally, the market for robotic surgery systems could grow so rapidly that it could support multiple winners. After all,Mazor estimates that its products have an addressable market opportunity of about 500,000 procedures eachyearin the U.S. alone. For context, last year the company system was only used in about 5,000 procedures in the U.S. That hints that there is a ton of growth runway left, even if the playing field gets a little bit more crowded.

I think that thecompany's leadership position and growth potential more than compensate investors for the risks they are taking by sticking with the company. Still, there's no doubt that the competition for robotic surgical systems is about to get fierce.

Brian Feroldi owns shares of Intuitive Surgical and Mazor Robotics. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Intuitive Surgical. The Motley Fool owns shares of Medtronic. The Motley Fool recommends Globus Medical and NuVasive. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Should Mazor Robotics' Investors Fear the Incoming Competition ... - Motley Fool