Apex.AI adds Brian Gerkey to its Board of Advisors

Brian Gerkey, CEO of Open Robotics

We are delighted to announce that Brian Gerkey, CEO of Open Robotics, joined Apex.AI’s Board of Advisors on January 1st, alongside the existing advisor Jon Feiber.

Prior to his role as CEO of Open Robotics, Brian was Director of Open Source Development at Willow Garage, where ROS (Robot Operating System) was first developed. Brian was also a Computer Scientist in the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI, and before that, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Stanford University. Brian holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, an M.S. in Computer Science from USC, and a B.S.E. in Computer Engineering, with a secondary major in Mathematics and a minor in Robotics and Automation from Tulane University. Brian is a strong believer in open-source software and an influential and inspirational figure in the open-source community. Before leading the ROS development, he started the Player/Stage project, which standardized the basic software used to control robots of every type. Today thousands of companies, universities, and governments around the world use ROS for their research projects. Jan and I first met Brian around 2007, during the early days of robotics frameworks and robotics software development. We then worked with Brian and Willow Garage on ROS during the PR2 Beta Program. Later, after having used ROS in various applications, we spent a lot of time talking about what works and doesn’t work in ROS 1, and what should be changed in future versions. These discussions, and Open Robotics’ continued open-source development, lead to the development and recent release of ROS 2. When Apex.AI was founded in 2017, Brian became a natural choice for advisor to Apex.AI, helping us to identify how to transform ROS 2 into an automotive grade platform. We will commercialize this under the name Apex.OS*.

Formally adding Brian to our Board of Advisors underscores our commitment to continuing the give-and-take relationship with the open-source ROS community. Brian’s background and goals are very closely aligned with our background and vision. Brian is recognized globally as an expert in the areas of robotics and open-source development and carries a deep understanding of the market and customer needs which will provide essential insights to Apex.AI during this pivotal time in our young history. Please join us in welcoming Brian to Apex.AI!

*As of January 2023 we renamed our products: Apex.Grace was formerly known as Apex.OS, and Apex.Ida was formerly known as Apex.Middleware.