‘Ziro’ Creator Honored For Innovation
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWest Lafayette-based ZeroUI and its hand-controlled robotic kit Ziro has received major recognition from a California-based nonprofit. TiE Silicon Valley has named the company one of the 50 most innovative tech startups in the world.
ZeroUI, which developed Ziro at Purdue University, was selected out of a pool of more than 7,000 nominees from 28 countries. Purdue says the company was recognized for making robotics widely accessible through its plug-and-play IoT robots and smart interactions.
The recognition was announced at the TiE50 Silicon Valley awards program. A panel of experts selected the TiE50 list based on the nominees’ intellectual property and potential for strong growth, according to Purdue.
"TiE50 is a highly competitive technology showcase, and we are very humbled by the recognition that ZeroUI and the whole team have received for the technology," said Raja Jasti, co-founder and chief executive officer of ZeroUI. "I am proud of the team’s hard work to move Ziro and our other technologies to the public."
Inside INdiana Business Special Projects Reporter Kylie Veleta wrote about Ziro in 2016 after the concept received high praise at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Ziro utilizes wireless motor modules that can be attached to any material and animated by a glove with special sensors.
"The Ziro kit allows users to build and create free-form robotics construction and operate the robot using gestures with their hands when wearing a glove that comes with the kit," said Karthik Ramani, co-founder and chief scientific officer of ZeroUI. "We have basically made something that is complicated and made it easy and fun. As a result we hope to engage more kids in engineering and other STEM fields."
ZeroUI will accept the award at a ceremony Friday at the TiE Inflect 2018 conference in California. You can view the full list the 50 most innovative tech startups by clicking here.