Cogitai Announces Addition of Dr. Peter Wurman, Co-Founder of Kiva Systems

NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cogitai, the artificial intelligence (AI) start-up focused on next generation machine learning technologies, announced today that Kiva Systems Co-Founder Dr. Peter Wurman has joined the company as Vice President of Engineering. In this role, Dr. Wurman will be in charge of overseeing Cogitai's engineering operations and project planning.

"We are thrilled to have Peter join the Cogitai team," said co-founder and CEO, Dr. Mark Ring.  "His expertise and experience in commercializing AI systems is a perfect complement to the research and development we are undertaking.  We particularly look forward to enlisting his expertise and insights as we deploy our continual learning algorithms on robots."

As CTO and Technical Co-Founder of Kiva Systems, a company that pioneered the use of mobile robotics in warehouses and distribution centers, Dr. Wurman was responsible for system architecture and optimization. Since it acquired the company in 2012, Amazon.com has deployed over 45,000 Kiva robots. As part of Amazon, Dr. Wurman also initiated the Amazon Robotics Challenge. Of his joining Cogitai, Dr. Wurman said, "I'm looking forward to helping this world-class team bring innovative AI technologies to market."

Prior to joining Kiva, Dr. Wurman was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at North Carolina State, where he taught e-commerce systems and researched electronic auctions, multi-agent resource planning, and resource allocation. 

He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Doctorate in Computer Science from the University of Michigan

Cogitai, founded in September 2015 by artificial intelligence pioneers, Mark Ring, Peter Stone and Satinder Singh Baveja, aims to develop continual learning AI software that will enable everyday things that sense and act to get smarter with experience.  This experience will then be shared across devices and domains to allow the rapid scaling-up of learning. The company has already attracted strategic investment from Sony Corporation. 

SOURCE Sony Corporation; Cogitai