Investors: Press Release
GeckoSystems and Japanese Robot Company Sign Agreement
CONYERS, Ga., Aug. 3, 2010 -- GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (PINKSHEETS: GCKO) -- announced today that their Japanese representative, Hajime Yasumatsu, has successfully negotiated an Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a leading Japanese personal robot manufacturer, Business Design Laboratory Co., Ltd. (BDL).
GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the emerging Mobile Service Robot (MSR) industry revolutionizing their development and usage with their "Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security, and Service™".
"We are pleased to announce the signing of this foundation agreement. The Japanese have their own eldercare crisis because of the size of their WWII widow population. Due to their understanding of the high costs of sufficient and appropriate eldercare, the Japanese government has spent one hundred million dollars ($100,000,000) in grants (to Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, NEC, etc.) over the last eight to ten years to develop personal robots for their own eldercare crisis, yet only limited solutions have been developed by them to date. Now that we have this initial agreement in place, we can progress forward exploring our many areas of common interest with BDL," commented Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems.
"BDL is in the business to do planning, development, manufacturing and sales of intelligent communication robots. They are aiming for the leading position in the Japanese personal robot industry. BDL will contribute to the 'Aging (Japanese) Society with Fewer Children.' They intend to further growth of a new industry and support venture businesses by coordinating joint projects among industry, government, and education entities.
"BDL's associated companies include the following: Brother Industries, Ltd., (product design), NEC System Technologies, Ltd., (voice recognition and text-to-speech technologies), Asahi Kasei Corporation, (robotics engines), and Futaba Industrial Co., (manufacturing)," observed Hajime Yasumatsu, Chairman, Yasu, Inc.
In this fundamental agreement, the CEO's of both companies agree that "having carefully assessed their mutual interests, have determined that they would benefit from exploring the possibilities on a non exclusive basis of entering into joint collaborations for R&D, market research, technology licensing, distribution and manufacturing in Japan, etc." This would include, but not be limited to, the localization (adaptation) of GeckoSystems' CareBot™ for the Japanese marketplace.
"I believe their interest in us is due to not only our flagship product, the automatic self navigation software, GeckoNav™, but also the reality that we have a complete multitasking personal assistant robot, the CareBot. We continue to expect technology licensing revenues, primarily software, to precede revenues from product manufacturing and sales. BDL and GeckoSystems are investigating collaborating on the development of a four-degree of freedom (DOF) low cost robot arm appropriate for mobile service robots and light industrial use. BDL has indicated interest in GeckoSystems enabling the US distribution of the jointly designed light industrial version of this initial project and is presently quoting on the cost of this R&D project.
"The cost saving benefits of GeckoSystems' suite of mobile robot technologies will generate multiple revenue streams for GeckoSystems in the form of licensing, royalties, training, and sales of various hardware systems and subsystems. I expect the synergies revealed in our confidential discussions to result in distribution into the Japanese market and enable significant cost reductions in the systems and subsystems we import from Japan. As one would expect, licensing revenues and a more competitive cost structure will increase shareholder value and ROI for our stockholders," opined Spencer.
About Business Design Laboratory Co., Ltd.:
Performs planning, development, manufacturing and sales of intelligent communication robots. Those robots recognize human language and emotions through intelligent communication technology, and incorporate expressions and body movement into conversations to provide entertainment for users of all age groups in a variety of everyday scenarios of robots for everyday use.
BDL is pursuing:
* Development of friendly Communication Robots able to engage in continuous conversation, incorporating expressions and bodily movement into conversations.
* Development of Communication Robots which are able to recognize and speak foreign languages including English, as well as reflect the societal culture of those foreign countries.
* Development of robots aimed to support the elderly and children in offering comfort, education, and everyday tasks. They are designed to correspond to the speech and behavioral patterns specific to those users.
* Development of robots for corporations, able to perform reception, guide, and security monitoring roles.
BDL's "ifbot" Development:
In March 2002, Human Robot Consortium was established among Industrial, Governmental and Educational institutions for the research and development of intelligent robots that simulate human behavior. An industrial-educational joint research and development project was initiated among Nagoya Institute of Technology and neighboring corporations.
As the first research outcome of this joint project, the world's first Expressive Communication Robot, "ifbot", was created. As the opportunity for its commercialization was realized, our company, with the support of partners and a network with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, university researchers, and local governments of the Aichi prefecture, Nagoya city, Shizuoka prefecture, and Hokkaido prefecture, proceeded in enterprising the planning, development, and sales of "ifbot".
In June 2003, Futaba Industry Co. was entrusted with the mass-production development and manufacturing of ifbot. It was commercially released for sale in April of 2004.
More information: http://www.business-design.co.jp/en/