India-built robot 'Mitra' to converse with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Ivanka Trump at GES

The three-day **Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES)**  has come to India for the first time and is set to begin in Hyderabad today. The summit, which is set to unite as many as 1,500 emerging entrepreneurs and supporters from more than 150 countries will also feature the India-built robot called Mitra. [caption id=“attachment_4231673” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Bengaluru-based start-up’s robot Mitra. Image: Facebook.com/Invento[/caption] But what exactly will a robot do at an entrepreneurship summit? According to a report by the Times of India, Mitra will use its ability to converse to speak to the Prime Minister and **Ivanka Trump** while the two are on the dais. “They can then press a button which will prompt Mitra to sing that the summit has been declared open,” adds Balaji Viswanathan, part of the 14-member team that created Mitra. According to the report, Vishwananthan and his team will deploy two robots at the venue. One will take care of conversing with the dignitaries and another will communicate with the crowd at the International Convention Centre in Hyderabad. Mitra, who has had a limited life in terms of development so far, is a product of hours of effort put in by Bengaluru-based robotics startup Invento. Vishwanathan, the CEO and founder of the company told ToI that Mitra is trained to process over 1,000-1,500 phrases, which will be on display outside the main arena. Based on an earlier report by India Today, we learn that Mitra is about five-feet tall and comprises of software which has been completely designed in India. “The software is all from India, which is around 80 percent, but the hardware had to be good enough so we turned to China,” Vishwanathan tells the publication. The company is also looking to market this robot in China.