PAW Climate 2021 - AMP Robotics: How Artificial Intelligence is Revolutionizing Recycling

This video is from PAW Climate 2021 - the first ever conference on applications of machine learning to private-sector climate tech.
The goal of the conference is to draw more ML professionals to work directly on solutions to the climate crisis.

Matanya Horowitz, Founder and CEO, AMP Robotics

Abstract:
Globally, more than $200 billion worth of recyclable materials goes unrecovered annually. The economics and efficiency of identifying and sorting paper, plastics, metals, and other recyclables from the waste stream creates a major challenge for material recovery. In recent years, the waste industry has also faced stricter international quality standards for contamination-free imports of recycled materials, leaving the industry in search of cost-effective alternatives to meet these requirements. COVID-19 then forced many businesses to suspend recycling operations due to concerns for worker safety. Simultaneously, the pandemic increased demand for high-quality recycled feedstock to overcome supply chain interruptions and shifts in raw material availability.

Learn how AMP Robotics’ technology, which applies computer vision and deep learning to identify and differentiate recyclables found in complex, mixed material streams, is helping the waste industry meet these challenges by modernizing recycling—improving material quality, ensuring worker safety, increasing productivity, lowering costs, diverting waste from landfill, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions—while increasing overall rates of recycling and resource recovery.

Speaker bio:
Dr. Matanya Horowitz is the founder and CEO of AMP Robotics, an industrial artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics company applying automation to modernize recycling and enable a world without waste.

He developed and commercialized AMP’s breakthrough AI platform, AMP Neuron™, and robotics system, AMP Cortex™, which automates the high-speed identification, sorting, picking, and processing of material streams. AMP’s machine learning technology continuously improves performance by adapting to the complex, ever-changing material characteristics of municipal solid waste, construction and demolition (C&D) debris, and e-waste. Recognizing attributes down to the SKU and brand level, AMP can provide unprecedented data transparency and insights on waste streams to inform decisions and unite the value chain of circularity.

Fast Company recognized Matanya as one of 2020’s “Most Creative People in Business.” Waste360 named Horowitz its “2019 Innovator of the Year,” and included him on its annual “40 Under 40” list. Under his leadership, AMP has received numerous awards and international recognition, including Fast Company’s “World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2020,” Forbes "AI 50," Fortune’s “Impact 20,” an Innovation Award from Robotics Business Review, a Colorado 2020 “Inno on Fire” award, Cleantech Group’s 2021 Cleantech 100 and 2020 “Rising Star Company of the Year” award, The Circulars 2018 Award for “Circular Economy Top Tech Disruptor” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and the National Waste and Recycling Association’s “2017 Innovator of the Year” award.

He earned four bachelor’s degrees, in electrical engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, and economics, along with a master’s degree in electrical engineering, from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He holds a doctorate in control and dynamical systems from the California Institute of Technology, with publications and research in control theory, path planning, and computer vision.