Machine Minds

Bridging Hardware Innovation and Business Strategy in Robotics with Milt Walker

• Greg Toroosian • Episode 114

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In this episode of Machine Minds, we look at what really happens when hardware innovation meets business strategy in robotics. Director of Business Development Milt Walker joins Greg to unpack how manufacturers, startups, and ecosystem players can scale robotics responsibly—without getting stuck in proof-of-concept purgatory or pretending they’re “just” software companies. From functional safety to workforce gaps and reshoring, Milt explores the forces reshaping how robots get built, deployed, and trusted in the real world.

Milt brings a rare blend of hands-on engineering, ecosystem building, and strategic thinking. From early days fixing XT and 386 machines in a small-town computer shop, through field roles and leadership at Intel and Sick, to helping seed the Atlanta robotics community with RoboGeorgia, he’s consistently sat at the intersection of technology and partnerships. Now at Next Cobot, he focuses on giving robot builders the safety-critical and control platforms they need so they can innovate faster on what makes their systems unique.

In this conversation, Greg and Milt explore:

  • Why “alignment” is Milt’s non-negotiable in partnerships—and how it changes the BD conversation
  • The shift from customization to configuration as a path to real scalability
  • How mid-market manufacturers and smaller warehouses can approach automation differently from the top 10% of global players
  • The growing importance of safety platforms and standards as humanoids and advanced AI move closer to the factory floor
  • What it actually looks like to build bridges between Taiwan and US robotics ecosystems
  • Milt’s moonshot fascination with nano-robotics and “bottom-up” fabrication
  • Practical career advice for engineers and technical leaders who want to move into business development and strategy roles in robotics

If you’re building robots, selling them, or betting your operations on them, this episode will sharpen how you think about partners, platforms, and the long game of automation.

Connect with Milt Walker on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwalkeriii/
Connect with Greg Toroosian on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregtoroosian/

Chapters:
2:34 Essential Technology
3:31 Early Career Insights
4:42 Robotics Passion
7:38 Business Development Path
9:58 Atlanta's Robotics Ecosystem
12:37 Joining NexCobot
15:19 Partnership Strategies
16:14 Market Opportunities
18:33 Barriers to Adoption
21:35 Finding the Right Partners
24:15 Successful Collaborations
27:07 Customization vs. Scalability
30:44 Technological Trends
37:07 Standards and Regulations
45:41 Moonshot Ideas
47:06 Advice for Aspiring Professionals
49:21 Reflections on Career Growth

Greg Toroosian:
[0:13] Milk coffee tea or something else what fuels your mornings.

Milt Walker:
[0:16] Mostly coffee and i i tend to i try to spice it up a little bit with some hot cocoa and so it's hot cocoa and coffee so i make this uh this mocha or this homemade mocha i guess you could say nice.

Greg Toroosian:
[0:29] Nice now i kind of want that, when you were a kid what did you think you'd grow up to be.

Milt Walker:
[0:38] That's, that's a good question. I bounce around with what, you know, I felt like I knew I was going to be doing something in computers, right? I knew I was going to be doing something in computers or electronics, you know, whether I was a programmer or, you know, some kind of hardware builder, that was my path as a kid.

Greg Toroosian:
[0:57] Nice.

Milt Walker:
[0:58] Or a Jedi, you know.

Greg Toroosian:
[1:01] Yeah, of course. I want it to be Superman, but whatever. what's one technology that you can't live without.

Milt Walker:
[1:08] You know probably communications right i've batted this back and forth is like what what could i couldn't i live without is probably communications you know some type of communication device and it doesn't need to be a phone it doesn't need to be visual just some way to communicate out right yeah that's probably what i couldn't live without or you know maybe not technical but my bike right like i i really like from a from an early age and and kind of going back to your previous question and i always thought i would do something in biking like bmx or something like that right and so

Milt Walker:
[1:46] not not super high tech but biking technology some kind of you.

Greg Toroosian:
[1:51] Do long distance biking because you're in atlanta right i don't.

Milt Walker:
[1:54] I've never.

Greg Toroosian:
[1:55] Been I need to get out there, so invite me soon. But from what I hear, everything's kind of spread out, right?

Milt Walker:
[2:01] It is. Yeah. And one of the latest cool developments in Atlanta is called the Beltline. And it's really, it's this big path that goes around the city and connects several other paths in Atlanta. So there's a pretty good cycling community here. And, you know, you can ride from Atlanta to Alabama on a rail to trails path. Yeah.

Greg Toroosian:
[2:25] That's cool very cool all right last one if you can fast forward 10 years and see one impact that your work's made on the world what would you want that to be.

Milt Walker:
[2:34] I hope it, I hope it makes, allows people to be more authentic, right. To, to be more creative and dig into some of the things that they would, you know, rather be doing than the grueling jobs. Right. And so, you know, maybe they want to, maybe people want to do grueling jobs at some point, but I think there's always the, the artistic piece, right. Where people want to go and enjoy nature. And, and, you know, for me, I'm, I'm an amateur astrophotographer, so I love taking pictures of the night sky so you know i haven't been able to do that you know in the last few months so i kind of think of it through that lens like i want to be able to go do that let's offload some of the work so we can do more creative ventures.

Greg Toroosian:
[3:17] I love that okay already i've got, get out to Atlanta, get back on my bike, and I finally set up this telescope that I've got sitting over here. All right, cool. Just from the intro.

Greg Toroosian:
[3:31] All right, welcome to Machine Minds, everyone. I'm your host, Greg Terusian, founder of Samson Rose, your robotics talent search partner. And on today's episode, I'm joined by Milt Walker, Director of Business Development at NexCobot. Thanks for being on the show today, Milt.

Milt Walker:
[3:45] Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Greg Toroosian:
[3:46] It's my pleasure let's jump into it so i was saying this offline very excited and happy to have one of my industry buddies on the show but we've known each other for a while just from the conference circuit and stuff like that had multiple conversations but i'd love for you to share more about your early career before we jump into everything else just so the audience knows who they're listening to and how you first got into robotics and automation sure.

Milt Walker:
[4:14] Yeah so i started my career pretty early after high school, I joined this company. It was a, it was a local computer store, right? And actually this was in high school. I joined a local computer store as a tech. And so I got to go to doctor's offices and local companies and help build their, their computer systems.

Milt Walker:
[4:38] And back then this was X XTs and two 86 systems. And, um, you know, 386, this is like the early days of computing, right? And that was my sort of entry into.

Milt Walker:
[4:52] The industry that I look at today as a computer and robotics and AI space is technology industry, but that was my first venture into that. And that, you know, I had always been about electronics and computers and from, from a pretty early age, but that was my first real job. And so, you know, later as I, as I figured, I tried to figure out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and went to school, I remember having a conversation with a guy who talked a lot about, you know, what is sort of the next step? Like, what should you be thinking as a youngster about computers and like doing something in that space? And he sort of steered me, or at least he kind of counseled me towards this school in Rochester that had this program of computer engineering technology. And his his big deal was like, you want to get in there and start doing stuff. Right. You don't want to be sitting, you know, writing out theorems and kind of all this other stuff. Right. You want to you want to you want to understand the theory, but you want to get understand the application of a lot of things. So I ended up enrolling in at RIT and got a computer engineering technology bachelor's.

Milt Walker:
[6:06] And, and that was really the start of the education side in that space. And in that sort of timeframe, I was really interested in robotics and, and building something that could move and, you know, had controls and all that stuff. I was fascinated by it. You know, it was probably due to seven, several early toys that I had. And we can talk about that. That's a whole, that's really a rabbit hole, but that's, that's sort of the start. That's the Genesis. love.

Greg Toroosian:
[6:34] That yeah i was curious where that came from because obviously uh early on it's gotta be like toys or movies.

Milt Walker:
[6:41] Or the.

Greg Toroosian:
[6:43] Family member or something right so.

Milt Walker:
[6:45] Yeah very cool mine was a mix like i i ended up i think you know you're you're i had a lot of aunts and cousins and and where i'm from and and i remember an aunt gave me this book she was like oh yeah i know you like robots and she he gave me this robotics book and this robotics book, it's uh i actually have i have a card i bought i lost her copy don't tell him anymore i lost her copy and then i ended up buying several copies as i as i found them you know in different places but it was this sort of early robotics book and it talked about robotics from sort of the technology perspective and the cultural impact and art perspective and it was just kind of a broad, interesting you know maybe a coffee table book.

Greg Toroosian:
[7:32] Yeah that's that's really interesting you have to share the title with me so.

Milt Walker:
[7:37] I can go and find that as well.

Greg Toroosian:
[7:38] Were there any pivotal moments or roles that shaped your path through the business development leadership way that you've gone?

Milt Walker:
[7:47] Yeah. You know, I, I, that first computer store job that I had, the, the boss was a young lady who was like, she was very, very focused, very driven. And she was young. Like she started this computer store and servicing all of the, the different, uh, computer related businesses. Um, and it was like a, you know, I was from, I'm from a small town and I thought that was really interesting of, of running a business that you sort of run the industry in the, in the small town and the areas around it. Like we were the only computer store in our city, you know? And so I really, you know, I think that really impacted me. Like, how can you, you know, how do you run a business? Right. Like, how do you create, you know, where do you get the partnerships and how do you go about, you know, all of these things that make a successful business? So that's always been in sort of the back of my head, even though I was like, I want to build robots or I want to build computers. There was always this idea of an entrepreneurship. And my dad is an entrepreneur and a business owner. And so.

Milt Walker:
[8:53] And so I think that all of those things kind of came together and sort of directed me on this path of, you know, being an engineer and being a field applications engineer and a salesperson and then, you know, getting an MBA and then, you know, doing business development. And so I think that the journey has really been about, you know, understanding what you want to do, understand what I want to do, doing some of that. And then also kind of looking at it from a partnerships, how, what are other people doing and how do you bring those other people in that are doing similar things or want to do similar things to you and create partnerships to, to then go and do those things.

Greg Toroosian:
[9:32] I, I, yeah, that's awesome. And I think that that's reflective about the role that you play, right? Because not only in your BD path and being employed by these companies, but you're very active in the ecosystem. I know that you do a lot in the Atlanta space as well for tech and robotics. So I guess that's reflected. We can go down that path. I know.

Greg Toroosian:
[9:55] Let's go down that rabbit hole. Can you share more about that? Because it's not just BD that you do, right?

Milt Walker:
[10:01] Yeah. Yeah, so a couple of years ago, while, you know, just after the pandemic and sort of trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I was working at a company by the name of SICK. And, you know, SICK is a big vendor of, you know, LiDAR systems and barcode scanners and whatnot. And kind of thinking what my growth path was, and I knew it was in the robotic space or getting back into the robotic space, I ended up at Intel Corporation.

Milt Walker:
[10:31] Back at Intel, I spent many years at Intel beforehand, before the pandemic, or before I left in 2016, ended up going back in 2022, and it was a robotics-specific role. So I was looking at, okay, how do I, from Atlanta, how do I go build and help drive technology, Intel technology, into the robotics ecosystem? And what does that ultimately mean? And so there was this, I think, sort of bubbling energy around robotics and automation here in Georgia with, you know, all the manufacturing and automotive manufacturing EVs and things of that nature that are happening here. And a lot of what's happening around warehouse automation, right, with local companies. And I was trying to pull all that together without spending a whole bunch of money. I didn't have a super huge marketing budget. So, you know, without spending a bunch of travel and entertainment money, how could I do that? And so I ended up attending this event in South Carolina, which was easy to get to quick drive up to Greenville.

Milt Walker:
[11:36] And, you know, I went to this event was a day long event symposium on robotics. Right. Brought together a bunch of ecosystem players up there. And I was like I was mesmerized. Like, we've got to do this here in Atlanta. Right. What they did in Greenville. And so I came back and spoke with a lot of several colleagues here that were sort of all on the same page. We were all kind of gravitating around robotics and kind of helping grow business robotics and automation businesses here. And, you know, we were like, oh, we've got to do this event here. And that turned into the RoboGeorgia, the nonprofit RoboGeorgia organization and the, you know we had our third year event this past august right so it's been three years since that initial event drove this this creation of robo georgia that you know brought together several other partners it wasn't just it wasn't just me but we were all sort of on the same page,

Milt Walker:
[12:30] and informing that and driving events and kind of building the ecosystem here in in jordan that's.

Greg Toroosian:
[12:37] Awesome that is awesome yeah i love that and then now more recently you joined next cobot as that you're the first us employee is that right.

Milt Walker:
[12:46] Yeah yeah i think i think technically they there's the basis of an organization so so nextcom our parent company has a base in on the west coast and so nextcom you know focuses on iot and you know building systems and industrial embedded systems in a bunch of different segments next cobot takes that and focuses it really in the in the robotics space right so we build components for robot builders and machine builders so that's functional safety ai machine control and real-time control and there's some software pieces along with that but we we make those components that allow a robotics company to go and innovate and not have to you know start from the ground zero ground level.

Greg Toroosian:
[13:35] Love that so buy instead of build kind of mentality supporting that avenue.

Milt Walker:
[13:43] And, I would just say one, one other, one thing to add to that is, you know, a lot of what I've found, and we may get into this, but what I found is that a lot of robotics companies look at themselves as software companies. There's a few that, you know, sort of do, do hardware and they do sort of, they do hardware because they have to do hardware in many cases, but they look at themselves as they build this software layer, this autonomy stack or this AI layer that allows their robot to go and do work. And so, you know, and I sort of separate what we do from, you know, as a component provider, as a partner in that, you know, when a robotics company is building a robot, I look at us as a potential partner.

Greg Toroosian:
[14:26] I like that yeah yeah it's true as well I think probably what the last sort of eight years five years people from an investment standpoint at least have been pushed to be more even if you're not fully but like hey position yourself as a software company because of how you price it how you hire you know overhead all of that stuff but the reality is you're still going to be building even if it's a small part of it or you know your your packaging or whatever it is but it's a conversation i have with founders all the time right buy versus build who are the right providers to use and then in this in this way of positioning having the right partner is is going to be crucial yeah yeah so coming in what sort of kind of problems have you been tasked with with solving or initiatives have you been tasked with leading at the next one?

Milt Walker:
[15:20] Yeah. I mean, that's great. I mean, as, as someone who's helping grow the footprint here in the U S you know, my, my, I think the big problem that I'm looking to solve or working on solving is the partnership, right. Is, is creating the right partnerships. And I, you just mentioned it is like a key thing about growing a business is your partners, right? There's the saying of you want to go, you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others. Right. And so I think the whole idea is really to go far, find the right others and build the right partnerships to help scale the business. So that's been my challenge is organizing that. How do you create a partnership program that brings in the right people, that has the right value, that has the right things that allows the partnership to grow and be productive? So that's been the big thing that I'm trying to solve.

Greg Toroosian:
[16:14] Interesting. What markets do you see as the most fertile ground for your guys' offerings? Like.

Milt Walker:
[16:22] Yeah. You know, as far as robotics goes, I think that the key spaces for me are what's driving the robotics business. Like, look at the macro factors that are driving robotics and automation. And some of that is, you know, competitive, right? Efficiency, right? You know, manufacturers want to be able to create products in an efficient way with, you know, less downtime, less, you know, excursions and, you know, less quality issues and things of that nature. So that's that's driving a lot of robotics. And also the the workforce challenge in many areas is driving robotics as well, like not being able to get the right, you know, enough people to do the job. And there's a lot of, you know, I was just talking to a manufacturer the other day about the change in demographics that's happening in a lot of some of these smaller manufacturers, small to medium manufacturers, where you've got an aging workforce that's exiting the workforce, and you don't have many younger players that are coming into the workforce to do those specific jobs. Right. And so it creates this big this this space of, OK, are we going to as a manufacturer, do we shut down this place and consolidate everything to the, you know, to the higher efficiency manufacturing and move it from one city to the other? And what does that do to change our, our supply chain?

Milt Walker:
[17:50] And like our, you know, there's a bunch of things that have to change in order for that to happen.

Milt Walker:
[17:54] Or do we look at automating some of these roles where, you know, we can do more with, with less of a workforce or we can right size the workforce and still, and still do the work and not have to move the business to another country or, you know.

Milt Walker:
[18:09] And things of that nature. So that that's, those are big drivers of what I'm seeing in those spaces and specifically segments around manufacturing, warehousing and distribution centers. And yeah, I think those, those are the big places where I see robotics in manufacturing. And then, and subsequently that's where I see our partnerships with folks that

Milt Walker:
[18:33] are focused on that space.

Greg Toroosian:
[18:34] Yeah that's it you know i hadn't actually ever thought about that because you hear about a lot of companies moving like hey we're going to move out operations from california to texas or to georgia because of space and cost and you know overhead and all of that stuff but that's a big undertaking like even if you look at who was it was it teota so i can't remember like moving all of their finance departments to take like the amount of money these companies spent on relocation on exit packages on all of that stuff just from like a hiring people standpoint let alone the whole new building and everything else like if you can do it in a manufacturing or logistics setting and just automate do more with less stay with your original footprint i think yeah that's a great lead for what you guys are doing yeah how does your day-to-day of business development look like you know bridging between taiwan u.s markets and collaborating maybe.

Milt Walker:
[19:36] Yeah that's that's a that's a good question so i so i either taiwan is 12 hours off from for me right so i'm either either up early meeting with with my my colleagues over there or up late meeting with my colleagues over there when it's early so typically around eight ish 830 is the is the time that works on both both ends sometimes it's it's a little bit later on their end but.

Milt Walker:
[20:03] It's interesting. It's the day to day is certainly when it comes to meetings. That's sort of the meeting schedule.

Milt Walker:
[20:09] Hopefully, one of the biggest challenges is trying to organize multiple time zone meetings. Right. When when you've got like whether it's someone in India, Taiwan, California and in the East Coast, that's so difficult to manage those types of meetings. But I think that the day to day, if it's not meetings, it's me working with partners, making connections. Like you mentioned, I'm always out in the ecosystem, you know, talking with, you know, whether it's, you know, potential customers, partners, you know, other folks in the ecosystems, funders, you know, startup folks and making connections. I look at my job is is certainly about, you know, as a business development guy, I sort of look at that different than sales, even though I'm I'm doing business development, business development and building sales footprint. Business development to me is more about building relationships and it's right it's connecting folks that you know that should be connected that can you know can drive some some productivity and i do a lot of that like everybody like anybody who knows me knows that i'll create an introduction to somebody that is probably a good connection for them so yeah i do a lot of connecting and and then having conversations with potential customers or customers about you know driving a sales motion or creating some

Milt Walker:
[21:32] kind of product and this is sort of my day-to-day awesome.

Greg Toroosian:
[21:35] Awesome when you're looking for partners within what you're doing you obviously mentioned like the industry kind of side of it but what criteria matters most to you.

Milt Walker:
[21:45] Yeah i really like that question because that the the, I think, and this goes for different areas, not just in robotics, but I do some, some work, some nonprofit work. I'm on the board of a couple of nonprofits, including RoboGeorgia, but aligning, finding alignment. Like if, if, if one thing, if I don't say one word, it's alignment that, that, you know, we should take away from this podcast is alignment is means everything. And then, and there's so many different meanings for alignment and where it shows up. And so when I think about when I think about alignment, it's really about trying to to, you know, trying to match a partner's why with our why. Right. We may align on a particular technology or thing or, you know, we're aligning on AI for whatever reason or safety or whatever. But understanding their why alignments.

Milt Walker:
[22:45] Around safety and matching that up with sort of our why allows for a lot richer conversations and allows you to dig into, you know, not just being, being a transactional conversation, but you can sort of dig into the, the, the roots of what, you know, safety means for them. Right. And then you can have conversations about, okay, well, you know, there's these, there, there, these things that are happening within safety that may interest you, Mr. Customer and Mrs. Customer and, and having a deeper conversation about what that means from a hardware perspective or what that means from a platform perspective versus just saying we have model X, model Y, and model Z, you know, sort of take your pick, right? And so I really like trying to find the alignment pieces to have richer conversations about, you know, about the end and not have a transactional conversation.

Greg Toroosian:
[23:37] Yeah. I think it mirrors a lot of how I operate as well. I think that's the most valuable way of positioning you know for the long term and then also it's not just like say transaction you don't want to be a commodity you don't want it to just be like quick win and then forget about it but longer term actual partnership having someone engaged in what you guys are doing, obviously they're buying products from you but it's how you work how you look at the big picture and the long term i think that's pretty crucial can you talk us through or walk us through any recent successful partnerships or deployments

Greg Toroosian:
[24:12] and maybe lessons, key lessons that you learned along the way?

Milt Walker:
[24:15] Yeah, and so these aren't my, this isn't my deployment, but we have.

Milt Walker:
[24:22] And like I mentioned before, I'm building a partner program sort of in the, we're in the middle of sort of launching that partner program. So you'll hear more about that in the next couple of weeks. And then, you know, we have several partners that we'll announce as a part of that. But we've got several partners that we've been working with for quite some time or in the last couple of years. One being Renesys. Renesys is a silicon provider, and they provide several functional safety MCUs that we're using in our platforms to help create functionally safe platforms. So when we think about safety in robotics, it's about, you know, having a platform that has a low risk of failure and generally a low risk of failure and then having the, you know, sort of the components that allow that, building that into a larger system or a robot or, you know, application is, you know, has, you know, a high level of safety. So Renesys is a, you know, again, a silicon provider, CPU provider, that we have several platforms using Renesys silicon as the safety MCU to then, you know, as, as, as, as robot builders are, you know, bringing safety into their platform, they can develop on Renesys. And we've had really good partnerships. I think we're going to do more i can't i won't i won't talk about a couple of events coming up but.

Greg Toroosian:
[25:50] Yeah we'll.

Milt Walker:
[25:51] Be digging more into that relationship and as an as a safety solution provider and as a platform provider i think it's a really good partnership because now we can go and have conversations with you know whether they're integrators or end customers who are building safety into their ecosystem it's a it's a good partnership to have to build those discussions around.

Greg Toroosian:
[26:14] Yeah it's a hugely important area now and i think you know you're seeing it more and more in the conferences or even standalone events and conversations in general especially you know the whole humanoid hype and all of that stuff like that that is a big area of it or even just as robotics are becoming more and more adopted in different size businesses industries and ones that maybe aren't used to traditionally having technology there or their first time right that's a big you know some of it is a fear factor but then obviously some of it is like real if you have these robots working around people you want it to be safe for a multitude of reasons in your view what are the biggest barriers to adoption for robotics in like mid-market or smaller enterprises yeah.

Milt Walker:
[27:03] I think there's a couple of, there are a couple of things that are barriers to adoption. And some of it is just because like small, medium businesses haven't had access to robotics in many cases. And as robotics costs and, you know, the, the ease of development, deployment comes down as the cost comes down and the ease of deployment goes up. Now it's, it's a new item that small, medium businesses can take advantage of, but you know, it's something different. That in of itself is a barrier, right? That slows things. Just the inertia is a thing. And then right on top of that is, okay, what is the solution that we need to pick, right? And if it's a new thing, there may not be a lot of examples in a particular business segment, right? A new small, medium business segment that are examples of, hey, this worked amazingly, right? No problems. And so I think there's a little bit of hesitancy. I think it's new.

Milt Walker:
[28:03] And I think, you know, I was just having this discussion with a colleague about like information, right? When you look at some of the studies, some of the bigger studies that, you know, you might see from analysts, right? A lot of the data comes from the top 10% of manufacturing companies, right? And so that data is sort of skewed towards large manufacturers. Well, these large manufacturers deployed technology in this particular way, right? And so does that information 100% apply to small and medium businesses? I think that sometimes is a challenge. Like, okay, well, let's do the study on small and medium businesses implementing technology so that small and medium businesses that want to implement technology now have that information. Don't just do it at the top 10% of manufacturers. So I think it's skewed that way. But I think the more... The more companies realize that, okay, that's one business implementing this in a large manufacturer or a large, you know, supply chain in a logistics space is a different business than implementing it in a small and medium manufacturer. And they've got to sort of treat those as separate businesses. I think that's happening more often.

Milt Walker:
[29:24] But yeah, I think that's a barrier. And I think folks are getting better at that. And I think we'll, you know, especially as we're trying, the U.S. Is trying to bring back manufacturing here, right? Reshore, nearshore. I think that's a key thing, right? The small, medium businesses and manufacturers are the brunt of that, you know, of that workspace, right? And so that's going to have to happen in order for a lot of that work to transition back in the U.S.

Greg Toroosian:
[29:52] Definitely yeah i can't remember the stat off the top of my head but i was having that conversation about the logistics industry as well because it's only really the biggest players that have incorporated robotics or automation in any respect but the majority of the cut if you go by sheer number um not as throughput but the majority of the smaller logistics operations right so these smaller warehouses and delivery services and they don't they haven't even touched on this yet so there's a huge tapped area and.

Milt Walker:
[30:24] I and i hope i hope that like we were talking about before manufacturing that it's not like oh well we can't refill any of these jobs and now all of a sudden we have to automate right and hopefully it's a little it's feathered in a little bit more than than that i think there are a lot of forces that are that are helping drive that but you know.

Greg Toroosian:
[30:42] We'll.

Milt Walker:
[30:43] See we'll see how that that turns out.

Greg Toroosian:
[30:44] Yeah for sure i'm curious what's your view on balancing customization versus scalability in deploying robotic solutions?

Milt Walker:
[30:56] You know, I was at an event earlier this year and one of the leaders...

Milt Walker:
[31:03] Mentioned something really interesting. And he talked about, you know, customization and versus scalability or versus, he didn't use scalability. I think it was, it was, it was some other outcome metric. And instead of customization, he, he preferred the, I, the concept of.

Milt Walker:
[31:25] Configuration, right? And so basically, instead of customization, which implies that you need to do something different, or you're changing what you're doing, he liked configuration, meaning that you've sort of planned for this idea of building out a solution, but you're just configuring the platform to now support that solution, right? And so sort of thinking through the idea of what do you need to do to, to go from customization to configuration? And then how does that allow you to scale? Because you're not spending time rebuilding stuff or kind of, you know, tailoring this to a particular solution. You're just, you're, you're customizing this for a particular solution and, and doing, you know, less heavy lifting. So I really liked that concept. And I think that is a, is a way for folks to think about, you know, don't reinvent the wheel for each customer, figure out what the commonalities are and be able to configure for that, for those different customers. And instead of, I think that helps with scalability. It's also, you know, comes back to the idea of the POC, right? The proof of concept.

Milt Walker:
[32:34] You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of discussion around, you know, robotics companies and not doing POCs, right? Because you get stuck in this cycle of doing POCs forever and it doesn't allow you to scale. So if You can figure out, you know, maybe it's a sale and it's sort of maybe not mass, but it's sort of this idea of we're making revenue for this POC and we're building this solution with the customer. And it's not the idea of a traditional POC where you're just trying to prove the concept. And the last thing I'll say on that is, you know, many times, and this is maybe a through line through some of the other conversations. Many times when you're deploying a robotic solution, you can prove that the solution works, that the concept works, right? But the challenge is going from concept to meeting those KPIs, right? What is the end customer's KPIs and can your robotic solution, your automation solution actually meet those KPIs? And so figuring out, you know, to get from there to there is, you know, if you think of scalability as an equation, that's the gap, right?

Greg Toroosian:
[33:46] Yeah because you hear people like oh it's easy to make something work in a lab you know one time out of five but are you going to get to 99 uptime which is what your customers are going to pay for like that's the real thing at.

Milt Walker:
[33:58] A specific beat rate right.

Greg Toroosian:
[33:59] Yeah exactly i'm curious what you said there's super valuable and i i think getting stuck in that poc kind of, death cycle maybe for some customers because then for some companies because then you can't either generate the revenue or raise capital again or whatever yeah it's a very good point and and a good cautionary tale on the other side you know to play devil's advocate a bit i'm curious on your perspective what about if you're building it's probably more relevant for earlier stage companies but if you're building a product for industries obviously each customer might have slightly different needs how do you think or how would you approach it like going into hey we're just going to do this for five customers figure out the the the general use case across all of them customize to each one and then make like you said end up being configuration instead of customization moving forward or are you just going to choose one customer to be your pilot do everything for them and then go and sell to others in the industry how would you think through that.

Milt Walker:
[35:06] That's a, you know, putting, putting my, which is sometimes bad. So I put my MBA perspective on my MBA optics on. And, you know, one of the things that I really liked about the MBA, and that's kind of what I, why I went back to, to get an MBA was the strategy side. And so with, with strategy and thinking through strategy and thinking through robotics strategy, the idea that, you know, specifying things that you're not going to do right is is part of strategy and so as a as a business you know you're trying to you're trying to start a business you're you know you want to build a solution it's a robotic solution you know you look at the things that all of the the workspace the space that you could do things in right with this particular solution but should you do those things in this solution and how coming back to your question about scalability how does that you know prevent scalability if you're trying to, you know, service a bunch of different use cases. Right. So I think, I think some of it, and it's, I think it depends on, you know, of course the, the, the devil's in the details. It depends on specifics, but I think it's better in, in many cases to, to come up with a strategy that allows you to narrowly focus in certain areas and go after those areas and don't try to, you know, boil the ocean.

Greg Toroosian:
[36:29] Right.

Milt Walker:
[36:30] And exactly. And I think, you know there's there's a I think that's very attractive to to be you know be able to service all of these different things and but but it's also very challenging and I think at the early stages being able to to hit a fast ball right all of the time I think is going to be beneficial than trying to you know focus your training on being able to hit every ball all the time I'm not a baseball guy so i do neither there's gonna be somebody who's who's built that's not how you train yeah well.

Greg Toroosian:
[37:08] Cool. Let's shift gears now because you've got a very unique lens about the industry at large. And like you said, you're involved in the ecosystem, you've got the startup side, you're working with big companies. What technological trends are you watching closely at the moment?

Milt Walker:
[37:23] Yeah, there's some really good trends. I mean, if you if you think about this idea of, you know, automation and robotics in general, there's there's there's several really interesting conversations that are happening. You can say interesting or you can say they're they're sort of, you know, at odds with each other. But there's the idea of, you know, single function robotics or, you know, low function number of function robotics and general functionality robotics. So you can think of, you know, industrial arms, co-bots to some extent versus like humanoid robots, right? Or high degree of functionality kinds of robots. And then all the pieces that go along with it. So the AI layer and sort of the controls and all those things that happen. So I'm very interested in that conversation. And it's, you know, to me, it's almost like the Mac versus PC conversations, sort of, right? So that's something that I'm following. The whole idea for humanoid robots and dexterous hands, dexterous manipulation, and sort of, you know, there's been several recent articles about what humanoid robots need in order to kind of fulfill their, you know, their space.

Milt Walker:
[38:38] Fulfill their destiny. But one is dexterous hands, like being able to manipulate things like humans and feel like humans and have skin and, you know, all the different feedback and force feedback, things around joints and surface area and things of that nature. That's all needed. The idea is that that's all needed in order for humanoid robots to progress.

Greg Toroosian:
[39:00] Yeah.

Milt Walker:
[39:01] And, you know, in the in sort of the the just across robotics, I think the idea around development and of course, safety is a huge thing that I'm following and all the little pieces that, you know, that that where safety falls into the the platform development, whether it's, you know, what's happening with AI being used in safety. What are the benefits in that space? There are a bunch of things coming up. Reynolds and Moore is a leader in sort of AI and safety. And there's the IEC 22440 standard that's sort of in the works around safety, around AI and safety and what that provides. So I'm following a bunch of those things. You know, I've got, I've got this, I gotta give a shout out to, to one of our, my co-collaborators, uh, Aaron Prather, who was, was heading up this IEEE humanoid study. So I got that 95 pages of that summary or that, uh, the study group output on my desk. I was supposed to read it over the weekend. I didn't get to it, but I'm, I'm, I'm working on it. Um, so I'm following that. And of course that's a lot in safety. And then there's this, you know, there's several spaces in safety that you follow. So it's all really interesting stuff. And yeah, it's good. It's good stuff.

Greg Toroosian:
[40:23] Love that. How do you see robotics coexisting or even converging with other automation technologies? You guys touched some of it, right? IoT and there's the rest, digital twins, etc.

Milt Walker:
[40:35] Yeah, I feel like it's an interesting... Robotics is already a multidisciplinary problem or solution, depending on how you're looking at it. And so whether it's the mechatronic side, the kinematics, the software within the robot, within the creation of the robot, but then outside of the robot, like robotics tools. Right. Like all the debug tools and stuff that you need to debug the whole automation ecosystem from robot to communications to, you know, orchestrating multi robot kind of end missions, endpoint to endpoint. So tools, you know, things, the the the analytics and the simulation, all of that digital twin stuff. I look at it as all part of the ecosystem.

Milt Walker:
[41:24] And, you know, they're companies that are focused on one part. They're doing digital twins or they're, you know, they're doing communications, you know, between the different platforms. Right. There's, you know, I think all of these pieces to me are, you know, it's, it's all part of the whole and all of these things are necessary. Like Ross, right? Ross robot operating system and the developer ecosystem, right? Is, is huge. They're all pieces of this, you know, this, this larger hole that I think all needed to be tended, right? It's all like the garden, you know, you know, cultivate your garden and then your plants will grow. And so I think it's all part of the ecosystem that needs to be cultivated in order to grow these solutions, these outcomes that we're trying to drive using robotics and automations. I look at it as an ecosystem of all of these different things.

Greg Toroosian:
[42:21] Awesome. And you obviously touched on some of this already, but what role do standards, excuse me, battling a cold, what role do standards, regulations, certifications, et cetera, So what do you think they play in accelerating or even hindering robotics adoption?

Milt Walker:
[42:40] Yeah, it's an interesting question because, you know, if you think about innovation, if you just think sort of generically about innovation and think of, okay, well, what helps drive innovation? And this is maybe one perspective of it, but there are certain...

Milt Walker:
[42:59] Limiting factors or caveats that help drive innovation. Like if you have, if you have a set of Legos, right, and you only have 10 Legos, you've got to build something out of those 10 Legos, right? Are you going to build something different versus having 100 Legos or 1000 Legos for to sort of, you know, create something with? Does that only having 10 Legos have to make you think more creatively about what you're going to build. So I think of sort of maybe abstractly think of, safety standards as sort of not bad or harmful, but limitations that are part of the ecosystem that prevent a particular thing. So in this case, safety, you don't want to harm people, right? So you have to innovate within that space of how do I do this task without harming people? Now I've got to get creative about doing this particular thing or driving a solution that's different from the, if I started off with the, you know, the premise of, well, just build something. We don't care if you harm humans or not. Right. And so does it, does that drive innovation? I think, I think that, that playing field is a little bit different and it's less innovative in, in, in sort of these, um, restrictions tend to drive innovation and people thinking and trying to think okay how do i do this given uh given having these these restrictions i.

Greg Toroosian:
[44:29] Don't know if.

Milt Walker:
[44:29] That makes sense.

Greg Toroosian:
[44:30] It's it's true i think it's needed some sort of framework some sort of guidelines definitely the safety element and no i once they're in place you can move a lot quicker yeah instead of the the worry of going after this, moonshot idea and then regulation coming in and just stopping you?

Milt Walker:
[44:50] I think the challenge, I think the challenge is the, okay, you know, getting from knowing we need certain regulations to establishing those regulations. There's a lot of time that happens between people having conversations about what the regulation should be and, and inputs from the different system. I think that's probably the area that I hear the most of like, Hey guys, we need your feedback, provide us the feedback because now we, we, we have to do something about this. And if, if you don't provide us feedback, we're just going to go and we're going to eventually have to create the regulation. And now does that put the innovators that maybe didn't provide the feedback? Does that put them at, at a loss? Right. And so I think the challenge is getting from, again, knowing that we need, you know, realistic regulations to actually publishing those regulations. Right.

Greg Toroosian:
[45:42] If you had unlimited resources, what moonshot robotics project would you pursue?

Milt Walker:
[45:48] I'm really interested in, I've always been interested in nanorobotics. And so that would be someplace like I really want, you know, I'm a sci-fi fan, a Star Trek guy, and all this other stuff. I'm sure I've made references to at least something, Star Wars and Jedi.

Greg Toroosian:
[46:06] The Jedi, you said.

Milt Walker:
[46:09] So so you know that that will probably come out as far as you know my my background in sci-fi but, nanorobotics all the way i'd love to have you know i recently was talking about a a like a 3d printer like 3d printing technology is amazing to me but what if you could print that on a nanoscale what if you could print you know build your robot from basically the molecule up right what would that look like if you can design that and create I actually even I think I sent a note out to Peter Diamandis about you know the X Games the X Prize not X Games but the X Prize, And like, we need a, we need a Star Trek replicator, like get that, give somebody $10 million or whatever it is to start working on the replicator. And I think that would be cool. That's my moonshot.

Greg Toroosian:
[46:59] That, yeah, well, you know, we might not be that far off. Maybe you need to start tinkering on that in the background.

Greg Toroosian:
[47:06] Well, look, I'm conscious of time and we're almost at the end of it, but before you go, I do want to get a bit of your advice for engineers or professionals seeking to move into business development, strategy roles in robotics. What would you share for people thinking about that path?

Milt Walker:
[47:23] Specifically in business development and robotics, I think that it's a partnerships game. I think it's about building a network of people that are in that space or like-minded that you can learn from. I'm learning. I learn every day. Every time I go out to an event and meet with people, I'm constantly learning. I think that's a perspective that is super helpful to have is you know be in constant learning mode there's so much going on you know make make good connections there's there are a lot of people that are that are connected to many other domains make connect with those folks because they can give you really good insight and and sort of get your thinking outside of the box so that that would be my my advice.

Greg Toroosian:
[48:06] I love that is there anything that you wish you'd known earlier in your career.

Milt Walker:
[48:09] Oh so many things so many things so many things things. I wish I would have started earlier and I wish I would have been a little bolder in the things that I wanted to do. That, that would be, yeah, that's what I would have wanted to be a little more bold and a little more faster to, faster to make decisions.

Greg Toroosian:
[48:33] Do you think some of that comes with because i'm similar but then when i try and give myself some grace i'm like does some of that come with wisdom and conviction or because if you like if you just go and do stuff like bold and go you know you can either rub people the wrong way or make a lot of bad mistakes early on yeah it does.

Milt Walker:
[48:55] It's like they say there's a there's a phrase um or saying youth is youth is wasted on the young right.

Greg Toroosian:
[49:02] Yeah and that's yeah well.

Milt Walker:
[49:03] I think an old person's perspective like geez i wish i was.

Greg Toroosian:
[49:06] Younger i knew.

Milt Walker:
[49:07] All the stuff that i know now i i would.

Greg Toroosian:
[49:09] I would do things.

Milt Walker:
[49:10] Totally differently or faster or whatnot but yeah i think i think those things come with wisdom and come with you know some of the bumps and bruises that we

Milt Walker:
[49:18] that we get as we uh as we grow in our ecosystems right and how.

Greg Toroosian:
[49:22] We deal with people.

Milt Walker:
[49:22] And all these other things so yeah i totally agree.

Greg Toroosian:
[49:24] Yeah yeah but to that point if you knew what you knew now going back it's like just catapult but anyways let's uh excuse me again but look thank you so much for being on the show mil i really appreciate it it's been a while coming how can our listeners learn more about you and next cobot and follow along for everything you guys have going on and robo georgia absolutely.

Milt Walker:
[49:49] I'm pretty active on LinkedIn where I talk about all of these things. And yeah, I think that's probably the best place to engage. Of course, NextCobot's website is, you know, there's constant information there, but I think a good place to engage is on LinkedIn.

Greg Toroosian:
[50:04] Awesome. All right, cool. Well, thank you so much. We'll link all of that in the show notes and I'll see you soon.

Milt Walker:
[50:10] Absolutely. Thank you, sir.