For decades we have celebrated work as an integral part of the human experience. We yearn to be involved in activities that not only provide for our basic needs, but give us a sense of purpose. Work, and doing work that we love, keeps us focused and motivated. Not all work is created equal though, and the future of work is complex.

With 2020 in the rear-view mirror, the world turns its focus to 2021 and the challenges of adapting to the new world created by last year’s global events.

It seems that every week there’s news about a new amazing application of robotics, from e-commerce, to growing food or building houses. While for many people this may seem to be something for the distant future, it is happening now and will continue to scale rapidly over the next couple of years.

This rapid acceleration results from a convergence of factors, including advances in sensors, deep learning and computer vision algorithms, chipsets that can handle AI tasks and software standards such as the Robot Operating System (ROS).

We’ve seen this before