The International Conference on Social Robotics enables practitioners and researchers to demonstrate and explain the latest innovations in the area of social robotics. The goal of the conference is to study the interaction of humans with robots and the impact of robots in society. The 2011 conference has a theme known as "Alive!”
The social robotics research is aimed at developing robots with social appearances. The robots must have an appearance that enables people to believe that they are alive.
The conference helps to encourage discussion to develop robotic embodiments, computational models, and robotic behavior that allows robots to behave socially. The conference helps to determine the way people are influenced by social robots and to study their physical and social environment.
The 2nd Robot Design Competition welcomes students, design professionals, and scientists to develop a social robot for 2020, the period when social robots built with conscience will determine the future of interaction between machines and humans.
The ICSR2011 competition is aimed at developing future social robots of 2020. These robots must be capable of blending into the physical and social environment of humans. It must also be capable of making affluent, natural and useful interactions with humans.
Source: http://www.icsr2011.org/