Speaker

If you are interested in requesting me as a speaker at your conference or event, please contact me directly at: speaker@andrakeay.com

Title: Managing Director, Silicon Valley Robotics

Short Bio:

I am the Director of Silicon Valley Robotics and the Robotics Fellow at Singularity University. I have delivered keynotes at major tech conferences around the world. I speak about robots and startups, the commercialization and promise of robotics, the potential impact of robotics on society, career journeys in the emerging deep tech sector, human-robot interaction and ethics, and on creating intentional innovation communities to maximize our potential.

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andra-keay

Substack: robotsandstartups@substack.com or

Current Talk Topics

Global Economic Trends in Robotics
Humanoids: Are they really happening and what will they do?
Robotics 2.0: How current robotics differs from the past and where the future is heading
The Real Laws of Robotics
Creating Robot Startups
Good / Ethical Robot Design
AIpocalypse and Robotopias

1. Global Economic Trends in Robotics

Key Message: Robotics is no longer a niche — it's a transformative economic driver reshaping labor, logistics, manufacturing, and care industries worldwide.

Value Proposition: This talk equips investors, policymakers, and founders with a data-informed overview of how global capital, labor shortages, and supply chain pressures are accelerating the commercialization of robotics across geographies.

Audience Takeaways:

A clear map of emerging global robotics hubs
Where capital is flowing and why
Which sectors will experience the fastest disruption

2. Humanoids: Are they really happening and what will they do?

Key Message: Humanoids have been sci-fi for years - what’s changed and what real capabilities do affordable humanoids have today?

Value Proposition: This keynote provides context for the humanoid headlines with my direct experience with major humanoid producers, and critical insights into the history of technology manufacturing from the tractor to transistor, the automobile to the autonomous robot.

Audience Takeaways:

How to cut through fear-based humanoid narratives
What futures are possible — and what they require of us
Tools to design, not just survive, the age of intelligent machines

3. Robotics 2.0: How current robotics differs from the past and where the future is heading

Key Message: We're entering a second wave of robotics—one driven not by hardware alone, but by scalable intelligence, cloud integration, and real-world adaptability.

Value Proposition: This session reframes expectations about robotics by drawing distinctions between the overpromises of the past and today’s rapid convergence of AI, simulation, and real-world deployment.

Audience Takeaways:

The three defining features of Robotics 2.0
How LLMs and vision-language models change everything
Practical predictions for the next 5–10 years of real-world deployment

4. The Real Laws of Robotics

Key Message: Forget Asimov—real robots are governed by product liability, user expectations, venture capital timelines, and infrastructure constraints.

Value Proposition: This talk reveals the actual principles shaping robot deployment today, from ethical frameworks and legal constraints to market incentives and human-machine trust.

Audience Takeaways:

A modern update to Asimov's laws rooted in reality
How ethical and legal frameworks are evolving
What regulators, designers, and users really expect from robots

5. Creating Robot Startups

Key Message: Robotics startups are a different breed — and require a radically different approach to hardware, iteration, and capital than traditional tech companies.

Value Proposition: Learn the hard-won lessons from founding and advising robotics startups, including common pitfalls, what VCs get wrong, and how to survive the long road to product-market fit.

Audience Takeaways:

Proven paths to early traction in hardware-intensive markets
Why speed-to-pilot beats perfection
How to build fast, fail wisely, and raise smart capital

6. Good / Ethical Robot Design

Key Message: Robot design decisions are ethical decisions — and every UI, joint, and algorithm either builds or erodes trust with society.

Value Proposition: This talk offers frameworks for designing robots that not only function, but also support safety, dignity, and human agency.

Audience Takeaways:

Practical principles for responsible design
How to balance performance with safety and trust
Real-world examples of good (and bad) ethical design choices

7. AIpocalypse and Robotopias

Key Message: Fear and hype dominate the discourse on robotics and AI — but futures are made, not predicted.

Value Proposition: Through humor and provocation, this keynote challenges binary thinking and explores how we might intentionally build better futures through robotics.

Audience Takeaways: