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U. of I.'s legacy includes 24 Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer honorees among its notable alumni and faculty, celebrating achievements across diverse fields.
Eka Robotics, founded by MIT professor Pulkit Agrawal and former Google DeepMind researcher Tuomas Haarnoja, achieves superhuman dexterity in robotic manipulation using a force-sensitive gripper and a vision-force-action deep-learning model. The startup’s $150M Series A round values it at $1.45B, with backing from a16z and F-Prime. Eka’s robot adapts to diverse objects without retraining, handles up to 1,500 items per hour with 95%+ success, and integrates physics simulation for scalable reinforcement learning. Experts compare its precision—like gently grasping a raspberry—to breakthroughs in legged locomotion, though real-world deployment challenges remain in industrial settings.
