Around 250 people gathered at Unity Place in Central Milton Keynes last Thursday, to take part in the “Shaping the Future” event organised by The Open University. The event showcased and celebrated Open University research while at the same time fostering networking and knowledge sharing opportunities with businesses and other organisations. Prizes were awarded to highlight research excellence at the OU, as well as in the context of the Open Societal Challenges and Open Business Creators initiatives. The OU MK:Smart team, which comprised KMi’s Prof Enrico Motta, Dr Iman Naja and Riccardo Pala, showcased their latest research on urban robotics. The OU team was joined by our partners at Extend Robotics, who demonstrated a new version of their software for remote control of robotic platforms, and Swift Robotics. The latter will partner the OU in the newly awarded “Resilient Enterprise” initiative, an Eureka ITEA 4 project which will commence in November 2024. The project aims to augment the functionalities already available in the commercial delivery robots deployed by Swift Robotics at MK University Hospital, by developing more resilient robotic solutions, able to learn on the job and adapt to changing circumstances.