In September 2019, Milton Keynes, UK successfully hosted the first Smart City Robotics competition ‘SciRoc’ funded by the H2020 EU programme. The aim of the competition is to highlight the huge potential for the development of robotic applications in the context of a Smart City.
The first SciRoc challenge was held in a Milton Keynes shopping centre in September 2019 and attracted a great amount of excitement and interest from the public and the media. It was focused around five “episodes”, i.e. technical settings where robots’ capabilities are evaluated with the contribution of the general public; you can read more about the challenge and episodes here. The first SciRoc challenge had a tremendous impact for the Smart City of Milton Keynes, hear what stakeholders and sponsors said in the full video.
SciRoc’s vision is to create a long term biannual competition with the second event in 2021 acting as a milestone towards this goal. The aim of this call is to select the host city for the second SciRoc challenge through an open process, as a first key step to making the Smart City Robot competition self-sustaining for the coming years. Hence, we seek Smart Cities to submit a proposal for hosting the second Smart City Robot competition in 2021 (preferably in the fall).
Benefits to the host city:
- Using robots to demonstrate your Smart City in action!
- Collaborate with your citizens, giving them a platform to understand the future of AI and robotics
- High media visibility to investors
- Establish new connections with worldwide technology brands and sponsors
- Strengthen the city’s reputation within the scientific community
The candidate city should provide a suitable location and infrastructure for the competition as well as the human resources to support the design, organisation and management of the event. SciRoc will provide the technical expertise and support to organise and run the specific robotic challenges that will be defined for the event. We will also support the process of attracting global industrial sponsors.
Next steps:
Interested parties can request a bidding package, which will provide a template for the full proposal submission, along with all the relevant information needed for the implementation of the second SciRoc challenge. To request a bidding package please complete the form via the SciRoc website.
Key dates:
The candidate cities should apply by sending an expression of interest by December 15th 2019 and a full proposal by February 15th 2020.
The selected Smart City hosting the second SciRoc challenge will be notified by February 28th 2020 and publicly announced during the European Robotics Forum March 3rd – 5th 2020.
For more information on the European Robotics League and the SciRoc challenge, visit www.robotics-league.eu and sciroc.eu
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Press contact
Sarah CarterUniversity of the West of England, Bristol
Bristol Robotics Laboratory
Social media: @erlrobotleague
Notes for editors
The European Robotics League
The European Robotics League (ERL) is the successor to the RoCKIn, euRathlon and EuRoC robotics competitions, funded by the EU and designed to foster scientific progress and innovation in cognitive systems and robotics. The ERL comprises annual competitions for Consumer, Professional and Emergency Service Robots, and a biennial robotics challenge for Smart Cities. See: www.robotics-league.eu
SciRoc
The European Robotics League is run by the SciRoc project, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme under grant agreement n° 780086. SciRoc continues to build the ERL; raising interest through public engagement, validating and disseminating new benchmarks, and accelerating development through demonstrating the performance of components and techniques against these benchmarks. Setting the competitions in a Smart City context drives development towards real societal needs. See: sciroc.eu