November 9, 2022
A Windsor entrepreneur is hoping to change the face of automation on construction sites.
Scott Fairley is the founder and CEO of Optimotive Technologies Inc. His company’s automated robot, IRIS, is designed to do the mucky, repetitive and mundane tasks construction workers would rather not do.
“We found that the most high value tasks that our little robot we created could go out and do was that of data collection,” he told Windsor Morning host Nav Nanwa on Monday. “Specifically looking at things like 3D-scanning, 360 [degree]-photos and inspection.”
Fairley acknowledges the concerns some people may have when it comes to technology replacing human workers in the workforce, but he says Optimotive’s objective is different.
“We focus on task automation, not job automation,” he said.
Local stakeholders are playing a part in ensuring that the IRIS robot is not the only tech project that is succeeding.
Last week, Invest WindsorEssex held its Emerging Technologies in Automation Conference and Tradeshow in-person for the first time since 2019 Wendy Stark, director of business retention and expansion, said more than 45 exhibitors and 360 registrants attended the conference.
“A lot of people were surprised at the level of the capabilities and the technologies that were available locally,” she said. “We had some buyers here from Mexico who were very impressed with the breadth of capabilities that they found in this region. I don’t think they anticipated quite what we had to offer.”
