The future of Intelligent Robotics

Matt Brown, CEO and technical innovator behind ThoughtForge AI, has a wealth of experience in artificial intelligence spanning over two decades. His expertise is rooted in developing AI for renowned game franchises like Halo, Bioshock, and Splinter Cell, where he led the creation of real-time AI systems and delved into the intricacies of percept-based agency and applying AI to spatial kinematics. Matt left the gaming industry in 2015 to join Bonsai AI as the first engineer and technical lead. At Bonsai, Matt pioneered the world's first production-grade deep reinforcement learning (DRL) platform developing the the first commercial applications for DRL. Following Microsoft's acquisition of Bonsai in 2018, Matt assumed the role of Microsoft's liaison to the UC Berkeley RISE Lab. Today, in addition to serving as CEO and technical lead at ThoughtForge AI, Matt is also a guest lecturer and board member at the Active Institute, a global organization focused on building awareness of and competency in Active Inference and its applications in Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence. Matt has an undergraduate degree from MIT in Computer Science and a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania as well as holds several patents in Reinforcement Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems.

Harneet brings over 14 years of experience in Robotics and ML. Before joining the industry, Harneet was an Associate Professor for Robotics at Duke University focused on researching and creating adaptive robotic control systems for dynamic environments. These controls are now used in multiple commercially available robotic home vacuum systems. Post academia, Harneet worked in AI product innovation teams at AT&T Bell Labs, Microsoft, and Intel AI. Harneet was the first product manager at Bonsai AI where he led efforts to create the world’s first commercial and production grade deep reinforcement learning platform, which is applied to diverse sets of control problems, including robotic control. After Bonsai’s acquisition by Microsoft, Harneet led Microsoft’s Bonsai’s AI product team delivering innovative AI controls to Fortune 100 enterprises such as Pepsi Co. and Siemens. Harneet also spent a couple of years at Amazon releasing the first version of AWS RoboMaker which is used by iRobot to create AI enabled robots. During his time at Amazon, Harneet and his team also spearheaded the growth of automation and robotics at Amazon’s distribution center and warehouses across the globe.

Whitney Sales has 19 years of experience bringing early-stage Enterprise B2B software and AI companies to market. Prior to ThoughtForge, Whitney was a Partner and co-founder of Forum Ventures Seed fund where she invested in, advised, and mentored over 150 B2B and AI companies in Sales and Go-To-Market. Her investments include SVT Robotics, Mapped (IoT), and PeopleDataLabs (AI), as well as SBIR partners, Craft and PeakMetrics. Before serving as an investor, Whitney was a four-time VP of Sales leading teams in achieving rapid customer and revenue growth, earning all four a place on the Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list. She is a teaching assistant to HBS’s Entrepreneurial Sales Course and a respected GTM advisor and teacher.