CSIRO to fund $1.2m robotics scholarship program

CSIRO has announced plans to fund a $1.2 million scholarship program at the Queensland University of Technology to help train the next generation of Australian roboticists.

The agency will use the prize money from its recent second-place finish at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Subterranean Challenge to sponsor eight scholarships under the program.

The Alberto Elfes Memorial Scholarship fund will be reserved for domestic or international high-performing students belonging to groups under-represented in the robotics industry. It will offer a full three-and-a-half-year scholarship and top-up to students undertaking robotics-related postgraduate PhD study.

The fund has been dedicated to the late Professor Alberto Elfes, a leader of CSIRO’s robotics program and a key participant in the DARPA challenge.

During the challenge, known colloquially as the Robot Olympics, CSIRO’s Data61 scored equal first with the final winner in the systems competition. The CSIRO team was only beaten by tie-breaker rules, with the winner determined by which team scored the last point the fastest, with the difference being only 46 seconds. The agency received US$1 million ($1.45 million) in prize money.

CSIRO Executive Director of Digital, National Facilities and Collections Professor Elanor Huntington said the scholarship fund represents a way to spread the benefit of the team’s win across the entire community.

“In 2021, a group of robotics experts from Queensland took on the world’s best in a competition dubbed ‘the Robot Olympics’ and came second in a photo finish. Using that prize money to educate a diverse cohort of robotics experts — who might be a 2031 DARPA Challenge team — will help Australia seize the $22.17 trillion global AI opportunity,” she said.

“We know that diversity is the engine room of innovation, and we hope to inspire and support a dynamic new generation of robotics talent.”

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