On October 15, sponsored by Beijing Association for Science and Technology, and co-organized by Beijing Institute of Electronics, School of Integrated Circuits of Tsinghua University, Beijing Service Center for Science and Technology Societies, Beijing Science and Technology Center for International Cooperation and Information and Artificial Intelligence Institute of Beijing Academy of Science and Technology, the 2021 International Competition of Autonomous Running Robots was opened at Beijing Science Center. Under the theme “technological self-reliance and creating the future together” and consisting of on-the-spot competition and online virtual competition, this event attracted a total of 110 teams from related universities in the UK, Germany, Russia and Pakistan as well as famous domestic universities like Tsinghua University, Sun Yat-Sen University and Wuhan University.
At the opening ceremony, representatives of related universities and institutions in South Korea, the Netherlands, South Africa and Thailand sent congratulatory videos to the event. Wang Zhihua, executive chairman of the competition, IEEE fellow, Tsinghua University professor and vice president of Beijing Institute of Electronics, delivered an opening speech. Secretary of Leading Party Members’ Group of BAST Shen Jie, secretary of Leading Party Members’ Group of Beijing Academy of Science and Technology Fang Li, CAE academician and research fellow of CAS Institute of Computing Technology Ni Guangnan, executive chairman of the competition Wang Zhihua, dean of School of Integrated Circuits of Tsinghua University and professor Wu Huaqiang jointly started the competition. Member of Leading Party Members’ Group and Vice President of BAST Meng Fanxing hosted the opening ceremony.
After the opening ceremony, academician Ni Guangnan, and executive president of Institute of Machine Intelligence of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and Prof. Li Qingdu delivered keynote speeches respectively under the title “from an open-source major country to an open-source power” and “knowledge about walking—from mathematics to robots”.
Robots, as a key link of AI research and application, have become an important branch of AI. BAST focuses on the frontier domains surrounding the construction of Beijing as an international sci-tech innovation center, gathers top-notched scientists through construction of high-level competition platforms to lead future technologies, serve talent growth, discipline integration, technological progress and industry development. Prof. Wang Zhihua said the competition is autonomous, open-source, academic and objective and is an internationally influential top-class competition in the AI field, bound to become an important exchange platform for discovering and fostering outstanding professionals in this field and serving the industry, academia, research and application.
Over 100 individuals attended the opening ceremony onsite, including representatives of the 10th steering group of the municipal Party committee for Party history learning and education, CYL Beijing municipal committee, Beijing People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area Management Committee, related universities, scientific research institutes, companies and science and technology societies, as well as representatives of participating teachers and students.