Professor Alberto Rovetta
Politecnico di Milano , Italy
Professor Rovetta has had a distingushed career in innovation across a broad range of fields. In particular relevant to this meeting is his pionering role in robotic (tele)surgery, having performed the first transatlantic teleoperation in 1993* and the first telerobotic surgery on a patient in 1995 .  Professor Rovetta has obtained numerous international and national patents, such as patents related to (here one mentions only those related to medical robotics): lower limb prosthesis, mechanical hand for robots (in conjunction with Alfa Romeo), robotic dummy for heart surgery,sensor for prosthesis of lower limb, system Daphne and Vrepar for the neuromotor analysis for Parkinson disease (with ST Microelectronics), prosthesis of inferior limb with intelligent control, and many others.  He has published over 400 articles, is author of many robotics books and is a member of many prestieous organizations including the New York Academy of Sciences. Some of his executive roles include Executive Councillor of the International Federation for Theory of Machines and Mechanisms (IFToMM), President of the International Committee in within UITA-Unesco for Advanced Technologies, Past President of SINT (International Society of Theoretical Neurobiology).

* To cite from the History of Robotic Surgery (by HM Satava, Prof. of Surgery at Yale, "in 1993, Alberto Rovetta was able to successfully perform a liver biopsy on a pig liver with the surgeon's station being at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, CA and the manipulators and pig liver in his laboratory in Milan".