Interview

ICC Kyoto：As an organizer, what were your expectations for ROSCon 2022?

Brian： We were really excited to do ROSCon in Japan for the first time, because Japan has always been a center for activity and innovation in robotics.
I can honestly say that it’s exceeded our hopes and dreams. The last time we did an in-person conference was 3 years ago in Macau and we had about 600 people there. Early on when we were planning for 2022, we were budgeting for about 350 to make the finances work, but we were aiming for about 500 at the most. In the end we had over 800 registrations and were also up about 25% on sponsorships compared to last time, so everything has been really positive.

Brian Gerkey, ROSCon General Chair / Open Robotics CEO

ICC Kyoto：What are your impressions of ICC Kyoto?

Brian： I had personally traveled to Kyoto before, but I had never been to the convention center and had no idea of what to expect. You find all kinds of convention centers around the world, but the Kyoto International Conference Center really stands out. The architecture, the layout, and the interior are all just fantastic – I’ve had nothing but positive feedback from our attendees about how impressive the whole structure is and the aesthetic sense of the place.
For anybody considering holding a conference in Japan, I would tell them that they should do it in Kyoto, and here at ICC Kyoto if they can. Both our team and the attendees have been really happy, and I’ve had nothing but positive feedback about the AV team here. There’s a really qualitative difference in production quality from what we’ve normally done and that’s all worked out very well.

ICC Kyoto：Do you have any suggestions for holding conferences in Kyoto?

Brian： One small recommendations for organizers is to do what we did and provide the choice of staying at the Prince hotel right next to the convention center or in town. Our staff was able to choose according to their preferences and were divided roughly in half between the two.