Ali Shtarbanov

Ali Shtarbanov - a researcher and Ph.D. student at MIT Media Lab - is on a mission to make prototyping and innovation in emerging fields (a) more rapid for experts and (b) more accessible for the general public through the design and deployment of new tools and development platforms that are highly versatile, general-purpose, and simple to use. His areas of research within the context of development platforms include modular systems design, soft robotics & haptics, sustainable deployment models, and community building. Prior to his PhD studies, Ali has earned degrees in Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Human-Computer interaction. 

Ali is the creator of the FlowIO Platform, which has been deployed in over 10 countries, and the founder of the SoftRobotics.IO community platform, which fosters collaborations within the soft robotics community and has over 600 registered members. 

Ali's works have been published at conferences such as CHI, UIST, and SIGGRAPH; have been featured in dozens of press outlets including Hackster, Mashable, MIT News, and Engadget among others; and have won multiple awards at ACM CHI, IROS, Hackaday Grand Prize, iF Design Award, Core77 Design Award, Fast Company, and Tech Briefs.