Empathetic robotics: new frontiers in human-machine interaction

The workshop, organised in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and NTT DATA, will offer an overview of the state of the art in social robotics research. IIT will present the progress made in the development of its AlterEgo and iCub robots, advanced platforms for studying human-robot interaction, while NTT DATA will explore the role of natural language as a bridge for conveying emotions, trust and empathy. This meeting combines science and application to imagine increasingly authentic and natural interactions between people and robots. Making the event even more engaging will be Jibo, the social robot capable of evoking emotions and creating empathy: one more reason not to miss this event.

Emma Romani, Innovation Advisor at NTT DATA, works in the Digital Linguistics & Human Behaviour team on NLP and Generative AI projects. With a background in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, she specialises in natural language automation and conversation design. At NTT DATA, she acts as a mediator between development teams and end users, supporting customers in the design and adoption of Generative AI applications with a human-like approach.

Luca Garello is a researcher at the CONTACT and SOFTBOTS units of the Italian Institute of Technology.
His work lies at the intersection of cognitive robotics and human-robot interaction, with a particular focus on the use of robots in the “real world”. This includes the study and development of robots in concrete environments such as museums, hospitals and other public spaces, where they interact autonomously with multiple people simultaneously. Currently, Luca Garello is focusing on integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) with robotic platforms in order to improve human-robot interaction in the long term. His work aims to enable robots to adapt and collaborate more effectively with people by combining natural language processing and machine learning.