Graham T Smith

For three decades, I have worked professionally as an international robotics expert and ‘robot maker’, technologist, international researcher and entrepreneur in the areas of telepresence, robotics, and virtual reality. As an entrepreneur I have started 3 companies in these areas.
In 1987 started my first company called Horizonscan to commercialize my panoramic virtual reality inventions and in 1996 formed my 2nd company named Telbotics to roll out PEBBLES (Providing Education By Bringing Learning Environments to Students) that was installed in over 150 hospitals and schools in Canada and the US.

In 2007 I started my 3rdrd company, Webchair: through Webchair we deployed over 500 units that link children recovering from cancer to their learning environments in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany.

My current focus is on TAR (Telepresence Autism Research) focusing on the positive impact telepresence technology can have on people with Autism and other nonverbal and ‘hard to reach’ individuals. We are working with schools and institutions in Canada and The Netherlands on the use case studies for this project, as part of my PhD in the SMARTlab Thematic PhD in Inclusive Design and Creative Technology Innovation in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at University College Dublin, in partnership with our Canadian Centre of Excellence at Ryerson University in Toronto. As part of the PhD I have recently co-invented the EyeMaus: a robotic presence device enabling increased ‘control’ of their presence stream for people with communications challenges.