Tomotaka Takahashi, one of Japan’s leading new-generation robot scientists, at the second webinar of the India Japan Study Centre’s ‘Tatsujin – Speak’ at IIMB
25 September 2020: His creations move, talk, have a personality, have climbed mountains, have done advertisement campaigns, and have travelled into outer space.
Meet Tomotaka Takahashi, one of Japan’s leading new-generation robot scientists, known for creating humanoid communication robots. Takahashi San’s ideology is based on the fact that majority of the human beings are more comfortable talking to humanlike figure rather than to gadgets. He was addressing the second webinar session of the India Japan Study Centre’s ‘Tatsujin – Speak’, a series to bring in high-quality information and insights about select areas of India-Japan interactions to the informed and interested members of the public. In the talk titled ‘The Creation of a New Robot Era’, he talked about how the pandemic could provide an opportunity for designing and developing new projects, especially for youngsters & new researchers in the area of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.
At the outset, Takahashi San spoke about his 20-year journey from being interested in the Japanese Manga ‘Astro Boy’, to founding his own Company Robo-Garage. He displayed the Gundam (anime robot character) model he had designed as a student, and his creation that won the International Robot Football event. Since then, his journey has involved researching, creating, designing, inventing, and manufacturing humanoid robot prototypes from scratch.
However, Takahshi San clarifies, Humanoid robots have limitations. They are not replacements of humans, and are not efficient for multi-tasking or specialist tasks like medical surgery etc. Rather it is an interface device between humans and machines. He showed the example of his latest invention ‘RoBoHoN’, a smartphone robot or Robo-Android, which can talk, dance, do tasks like take photographs and project them, or make a call, all on voice recognition.
A man of action, Tomotaka Takahashi prefers creating Robots with his own hands, choosing his material and personalizing the design. He said this process gives him a special perspective and an insight into new questions and solutions. He also mentioned how one tends to get carried away with the focus on tiny parts and the creative aspects; while this focus is essential, it is also necessary to focus on the consumer aspect.
On the Educational Front
“Times have changed. Where we used to read newspapers, younger generation are using I-pads to gain knowledge,” Takahashi San said knowingly. He firmly believes that Robots can be great teachers and great classmates and can help children with their learning and educational challenges. “When I was a kid, I used to learn a new language by watching television with one of my friends. We used to compete each other, it helped in our development.” Now, he says, in place of that, if a Robot, with the same capability as the child, is placed it will automatically develop a healthy competition and kids enhance their learning.
What’s next?
Takahashi San went on to encourage the youngsters & new researchers in the area, a fun-seeking and curiosity induced approach to being designers, creators, and technology consumers, and to pick a unique path / product, rather than stick to standard models and ideas. He believes that in the ever-evolving era of Robots and AI, young innovators and researchers should follow their curiosity, be unique, and take decisive actions rather than sit and wait. Till two or three decades ago, need was driving the technology. But now, “the need is generated according to the technology”, he says citing the example of the infamous ‘Tik-Tok’ application.
On a personal level, even though he was inconvenienced by the current Covid-19, Takahashi San is making the most of the situation by planning new projects. His vision, he says, is to create a robot that is in-between a Smartphone and Robot, just like Walt Disney’s ‘Jiminy Cricket’, who was Pinocchio’s conscience.
About the speaker
Tomotaka Takahashi is the Founder and CEO of ‘Robo Garage’, and the Founder of ‘Marine-X’. His inventions include a robot smartphone ‘RoBoHoN’, a kit magazine ‘Robi’, the RoboCup winner ‘Vision’, Robot Astronaut ‘Kirobo’, and the popular Grand Canyon climbing Panasonic TVCM ‘Evolta’ (both Kirobo & Evolta hold 4 Guinness World Records). He is also a Research Associate Professor at The University of Tokyo and Visiting Professor of Osaka Electro-Communication University. He has won several awards including the TIME magazine’s “Coolest Inventions” (2004) and Popular Science magazine’s “33 persons changing the future”. He leads ‘Team Osaka’ which had won the RoboCup (robot soccer) world championship from the years 2004-2008.
About IJSC
India Japan Study Centre (IJSC) was set up as a Centre of Excellence at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore to serve as a facilitator for many collaborative initiatives among academia, industry, and the government agencies between India and Japan on various areas of mutual interest.
For more details, contact IJSC at - india.japan.study.centre@iimb.ac.in