LASIGE integrated researcher João Bimbo was a speaker at the 1st International Humanoid Olympiad at the International Olympic Academy, Olympia, Greece. The event, held from August 29 to September 2025, gathered international experts, entrepreneurs, and companies to discuss and showcase advances in humanoid robotics.

João Bimbo’s talk, titled “Haptics: Robotics is a Contact Sport”, highlighted the central role of touch in enabling robots to interact effectively with the physical world. The presentation emphasised how haptics, both through sensing and feedback, provides robots with the ability to perceive contact, manipulate objects, and collaborate safely with humans. By framing robotics as a fundamentally contact-driven discipline, the talk underscored the importance of developing representations and technologies that can capture and exploit haptic information.