Jan Liefhaddr OpenMind founder and chief executive officer (CEO) said on the 12th that "robots will not simply replace humans but will open entirely new and different possibilities."
CEO Liefhaddr gave a lecture on "Igniting machine autonomy in the age of artificial intelligence (AI)" at the "2025 Advanced Industry Standards Leadership Forum general assembly" (hereinafter, the standards forum) held at the Hanyang Institute of Technology (HIT) at Hanyang University in Seongdong District, Seoul, on the 12th.
CEO Liefhaddr earned a doctorate from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and majored in bioengineering. While serving as an associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University, Liefhaddr founded the Start - Up OpenMind in 2024 to develop a robot operating system (OS). CEO Liefhaddr introduced the company by saying, "What we do is develop software that makes machines smart."
CEO Liefhaddr emphasized the role of standards in the process of robot development. Liefhaddr said, "In robotics, the truly new advance is that there is now a clear path for machines to integrate information about the surrounding world," adding, "As the wave of robots approaches, a huge opportunity for standardization has emerged."
As a society arrives in which drones, cars, and quadruped robots interlock and move together, the standardization process to consolidation different devices has become important. Liefhaddr said, "There is currently a considerable gap in how machines with diverse forms and functions communicate with one another," adding, "This, of course, requires the role of standards in various information exchange methods such as charging and payment."
CEO Liefhaddr briefly introduced how OpenMind's software runs. Liefhaddr said, "The way (OpenMind) built the software was to use multiple sensors," adding, "Vision, sound, location, and other types of sensors are each in consolidation with some form of model."
Liefhaddr added, "Each model sends signals in the form of language, and several sentences gathered in this way are compiled into a single paragraph," adding, "The paragraph of sentences is fed into the LLM, and through the LLM's deliberation process, it decides what actions the robot should take."
The "Advanced Industry Standards Leadership Forum general assembly" marks its second year as an event that discusses the role of "standards" and policy directions in securing super-gap technological competitiveness. This year's event is hosted by the National Institute of Technology and Standards of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and organized by the Korean Standards Association, the Korea Industrial Technology Association, and the Council of Deans of Korea Institutes of Technology, with support from ChosunBiz.