Aside from her day job as a senior product manager with Anybotics, Kateryna Portmann is also the Swiss chapter co-lead at Women in Robotics.
“Robots were my dream toy since I was a child.” That is what Kateryna Portmann, a senior product manager at the Zurich-based robot manufacturer Anybotics told me.
The company manufactures autonomous robots for industrial work. It is the maker of Anymal, a four-legged robot similar to Boston Dynamics’ Spot the Dog, which carries out industrial inspection work.
On a day-to-day basis, the 38-year-old works to ensure that any issues her clients face with their robots are dealt with. The job keeps you on your feet, and she likes that.
Plus, this isn’t the first time she’s worked in this sector. As a senior product manager with Hocoma AG, she helped develop robots for the medical sector. “I can see that with hardware…it’s very easy to see tangible results.” She likes seeing results fast too.
“People start working again after stroke or cerebral palsy and that’s very, very different from all previous industries [I’ve worked in].” She held a few roles in software before this.
Growing up in Ukraine, Portmann was always inquisitive, she says. “I was very much into creating things, asking a lot of questions; Why this exists and how to improve them”.
Those are things that a product manager should ask, she says. “Maybe I was born to be a product manager,” she adds, laughing.
Robots are a reality in the warehouse all around the globe. “The trend is to get more robots and keep people busy with more creative tasks,” according to Portmann.
Today’s warehouse robots are majorly stationary and do a lot of heavy lifting (pun intended) in areas too dangerous or menial and time consuming for humans.
Younger workers also enjoy working with robots, something businesses hadn’t really considered much before. “It’s part of the attraction – in addition to efficiency”, she says.
“So it’s very interesting that we were thinking about safety, about digitalisation. But actually humans really like to work together with robots.”
Moreover, newer, artificial intelligence-infused robots are much more adaptable. The AI, computer vision and deep leaning allow robots to interpret a warehouse environment.
“So AI allows for dynamic responses to those unexpected scenarios,” she explains. “For example, we use AI to adapt movement across a terrain… [in case] there is an unpredictable semi-structured environment.”
In addition, AI also enables robots to learn from the data its collected or fed and scale its capabilities across different industries. This would have previously taken years, but now, it takes just a few weeks from scratch, Portmann explains.
Gender disparity in robotics
Portmann says she never felt gender based discrimination as a young person in Ukraine. However, when she moved abroad in 2014, she realised that things weren’t the same.
It’s hard for both men and women to find jobs in Switzerland. But women get different, frustrating messages at every age, she learned from others.
“First, you’re too young, then you’re in [your] reproductive stage, so, you will have kids, then you take care of kids, then you’re in menopause. So you are difficult.
“And then you’re a woman that is over 50 and you cannot find job anyway.” She found a similar case in the UK too. “It’s more difficult to find job because of the stereotypes of being the carer for your kids, for your family [and] for your parents.”
Portmann strongly believes that inclusivity is important, especially in this new age of AI and robotics. “Without diverse voices shaping robotics, we risk amplifying existing biases,” she says.
Without a sufficiently inclusive training pool, an AI could make skewed decisions that can introduce risks – in this case, physical.
Moreover, the representation gap in the industry is “really, really big,” Portmann emphasises.
According to her, only 10-15pc of robotics engineers are women, and the number is even lower in Switzerland, at just 5pc. And the problem is compounded when HR representatives tell her that they cannot find female robotics specialists to hire.
The whole issue starts from a young age, Portmann explains to me. When children are young, there’s a lot of interest in robotics and engineering from both boys and girls. However, as they grow older, the number significantly drops, she says.
“And then of course, if they don’t study math, if they’re not interested in university, it’s already too late”. This is something that should concern senior business leadership.
Portmann wanted to find a female-strong community of engineers or people from the robotics industry. However, that proved difficult and so she decided to organise and become a chapter co-lead for Switzerland at Women in Robotics instead – a role she works towards aside from her full-time job as a senior product manager.
Women in Robotics supports women and non-binary people in the industry, aiming to provide an inclusive environment and a platform for individuals to connect, learn and grow.
“Our strategy was to create that community and to understand what representation of university students, junior roboticists, senior middle management, top management investors we have in the community.”
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