Emerging robotics industry holds great potential for the Upper Midwest

Just a few years ago in Scientific American, Microsoft founder Bill Gates looked at the emerging field of robotics and drew an analogy between the potential of today's robotics industry and the computer industry of the mid-1970s. We all know how the last 40 years turned out for the computer industry.

And in 2011, President Barack Obama announced a National Robotics Initiative as part of a broader $500 million manufacturing and high-tech jobs package.

It's entirely realistic to suppose that Minnesota and the Upper Midwest could add more than 10,000 high-paying jobs in 10 years within the robotics industry. Even today, robotics and automated systems designed and built right here are saving lives around the world and creating jobs. Robotics Alley, a public-private coalition developed in Minnesota, is already working to promote robotics leadership in the Upper Midwest.

Robots are moving from traditional roles in the completion of "dull, dirty, or dangerous" automation tasks and into uncharted territory like entertainment and personal service. Robotics systems are now revolutionizing industries from medicine and agriculture to security and industrial manufacturing. Robots like self-driving vacuums, cars and assisted surgical systems already enjoy a healthy civilian market, while thousands of robots protect our troops in Afghanistan and around the world.

New jobs are rapidly evolving in designing, building, servicing and improving robotics and automation systems. These developing fields can proliferate in our region - if we choose to draw national and international attention to our abundant human, capital, academic and technological resources.

Conventional wisdom places locations like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and California as the leading nodes for robotics research and commercialization. Yet the Midwest is not flyover territory.

With the Twin Cities at the center, a well-networked region rich in high-tech manufacturing expertise extends to the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. Robots currently saving U.S. troops' lives in Afghanistan are products of a robust Minnesota supply chain. Avionics and unmanned systems with global reach are driven at systems integrators in Grand Forks, N.D. Small businesses supporting cutting-edge research are growing in Wisconsin and other neighboring states.

We are uniquely poised to draw federal research funds and private investment that this next industrial wave will create. Now is not the time for staid Midwestern humility; we need to stand together as a global center of excellence in this field. Someone is going to be a big winner in the robotics revolution, and those of us already part of Robotics Alley say, "Why not us? Why not Minnesota and the Upper Midwest?"

Today, the inaugural Robotics Alley conference and expo will convene at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management with the goal of prominently positioning the central United States on the international map in robotics, artificial intelligence and automation.

Leadership for the "Robotics Alley" initiative came from ReconRobotics and the Minnesota High Tech Association, in a public-private partnership designed to unify the dozens of companies, organizations and policymakers who want to vault our region into the world's spotlight.

The wake of a financial crisis or major recession is like the aftermath of a forest fire. From ashes and wreckage sprout the young, fragile shoots of an even more abundant, lush ecosystem. Minnesota and our Midwestern neighbors are home to some of the world's most promising prospects in robotics. We all need to pull together to ensure these new economic opportunities get some much needed daylight for growth.

Andrew Borene is executive director of RoboticsAlley.org. He is also director and counsel with ReconRobotics, Inc. in Edina.

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