David Lane

David is passionate about robotics and AI (RAI) and transforming its rich research into useful products and services that serve today’s unmet needs. His breadth of entrepreneurship includes leading technology startups into high-growth businesses which earned him the 2011 Praxis-Unico Business Impact Achieved Award, the 2013 Scottish Digital Technology Award for International Growth and the 2019 Scottish Knowledge Exchange Champion Awards. Originally trained as an electrical engineer and scientist, David has published over 300 papers in international journals and conferences, including creating and coordinating international multi-party RAI hubs and projects (ORCAHUB winner of the 2018 Guardian University Business Collaboration Award). With many strings to his bow, he is also the founding Director and Professor in the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, works alongside a range of venture capitalists and supports multi-national government-funded projects to develop RAI businesses from the research. David was appointed CBE in 2016 for services to engineering.