Helen Greiner

Helen Greiner’s passion for robotics was sparked not in a corporate lab, but by the droids of Star Wars. She transformed that childhood fascination into a world-changing industry. While at MIT, she connected with Rodney Brooks and Colin Angle, and together they founded iRobot. Their first major successes were in life-saving applications: the PackBot, deployed by thousands of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to defuse explosives, and the smaller, cheaper Ember, used to detect landmines. But Greiner’s most profound impact on everyday life came from a pivot to the domestic sphere. She championed the development of the Roomba, arguing that a useful household robot was not only possible but necessary to drive the industry forward. Its staggering commercial success did more than clean floors; it made robots a relatable consumer product. After iRobot, she continued to push boundaries with drone technology at CyPhy Works and gardening robots at Tertill, relentlessly pursuing her vision of a world where intelligent machines handle dull, dirty, and dangerous work.