1st HERON Summer School on Robotics & AI – Highlights

The 1st HERON Summer School on Robotics & AI, brought together leading researchers, young scientists and students for two intensive days dedicated to some of the the latest advances in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

Hosted at the Eugenides Foundation in Athens, the event featured a rich scientific program combining plenary talks, hands-on sessions and interactive workshops across key research areas shaping the future of robotics. The educational program was coordinated by Prof. Sergios Theodoridis, who contributed to shaping the learning experience and ensuring the coherence of the Summer School’s plenary and hands-on sessions.

Participants had the opportunity to attend lectures and sessions by distinguished speakers from HERON CoE, Athena Research Center, NTUA and KIT, covering topics such as humanoid robotics, robot memory and verbalization of robot experiences, LLMs/VLMs in robotics, task planning with LLMs, robot perception, multimodal AI, legged robots, surgical robotics and soft robotics.

The Summer School opened with Prof. Petros Maragos, Director & Scientific Coordinator οf HERON, followed by a plenary talk by Prof. Tamim Asfour on humanoid robotics and general-purpose functional intelligence. The first day continued with a hands-on session by Ms. Joana Plewnia on robot memory and verbalization of robot experiences, a session by Dr. Niki Efthymiou and Dr. Panagiotis Filntisis on LLMs/VLMs and robotics, and a hands-on session by Mr. Timo Birr on task planning with LLMs. The first day concluded with an exclusive Planetarium show at the Eugenides Foundation, followed by a traditional Greek dinner at Rodia tavern, offering participants the opportunity to continue discussions and connect in a more informal setting.

The second day focused on advanced robotics applications, with talks by Prof. P. Maragos on robot perception and multimodal AI, Prof. Evangelos Papadopoulos, Dr. Katerina Smyrli and Athanasios Mastrogeorgiou on legged robots and agile mobility, Dr. George Moustris on surgical robotics and telesurgery, and Prof. Panagiotis Vartholomeos on soft robotics in minimally invasive surgery.

The program was also complemented by a dedicated appreciation welcome event for the KIT partners, including a guided visit to the Acropolis Museum and a rooftop gathering overlooking the Acropolis.

We are highly indebted to all speakers, participants, sponsors and supporters who contributed to making the 1st HERON Summer School on Robotics & AI a success story full of engaging and inspiring scientific experience.