INPERSON
Photo by Jeff Swensen
O
Cutting-Edge
Start-Up Leading
Robot Revolution
Local robotics pioneer
Jorgen Pedersen
wins prominent award.
BY JENNIFER BROZAK
14 724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE | Pine-Richland
ne local innovator is being recognized
for his pioneering contributions to
the field of robotics.
Gibsonia’s Jorgen Pedersen, who is the
president, CEO and founder of RE2 Robotics,
was selected as the 2016 recipient of the
Carnegie Science Award in the Start-Up
Entrepreneur Award category. The award,
which was established by the Carnegie
Science Center in 1997, recognizes and
promotes outstanding science and technology
achievements in Western PA.
“I’m honored to have won this award,” says
Pedersen, 44. “I’m also surprised because
there are so many talented entrepreneurs in
Pittsburgh who have started some really cool
companies. To be singled out among this
crowd is pretty awesome.”
As a child, Pedersen had dreams of
becoming an astronaut. However, once he
realized that it wouldn’t be “practical or
likely,” he turned his interest to the field of
robotics, earning both a Bachelor of Science
in electrical and computer engineering and a
Master of Science in robotics from Carnegie
Mellon University.
“When I was looking at colleges I
selected Carnegie Mellon because of their
applied robotics program and reputation
for excellence,” he says. “If I couldn’t go into
space myself, I wanted to be able to develop a
humanoid robot that could.”
He built his first robot, “Sidewinder,”
to enter a competition while he was in the
robotics club as an undergraduate at CMU.
“Although we didn’t win first place, it was all
of the countless hours of using CAD, a lathe
to create robot feet and soldering circuits that
really gave me an understanding of what it
takes to bring robots to life,” he recalls.
Pedersen founded RE2 in 2001 after
serving as the director of robotics engineering
for a small floor-cleaning robot company
called Servus Robots. While there, he feels
he learned the skills needed to run a robotics
company.
“Although I enjoyed my time there, I knew
that I wanted to branch out on my own and
develop more human-like robots,” he says.
For its first five years, RE2 served as a
contract engineering firm supporting the
National Robotics Engineering Center,
which operates with Carnegie Mellon
University’s Robotics Institute. Then, in 2005,
the company won its first Small Business
Innovation Research Grant to develop
modular mobile robotic arms.
“From this SBIR, we recognized a
deficiency in the defense market and realized