During the summer of 2022, I participated in IVADO’s Scientist in Residence program (which debuted that very same year). This program entailed matching graduate students to startups, where the startups would benefit from a knowledge transfer from the student.

I was paired with Acrylic Robotics, an art-tech startup. The goal of Acrylic Robotics is to democratize art, allowing up-and-coming artists to duplicate their pieces in order to reach a much, much wider potential market. To survive from art, one must normally go through the gallery system, where curated pieces sell for large sums of money. New artists are normally not welcome, and even when they are, they cannot viably live from their art: because they are new to the art world, the galleries set their pieces’ prices to relatively low amounts. Thanks to Acrylic Robotics, these new artists will be able to sell the same art piece many times. This will help them survive from solely making art and widen their reach to new art enjoyers.

During my time in the Scientist in Residence program, I helped shape Acrylic Robotics’ direction by giving insights into the world of Deep Learning.

Here’s a cool video of the Mecademic 500 painting a piece using Acrylic Robotics’ technology.

Video source: Acrylic Robotics’ Facebook page