Dr. Robert J. Szczerba

Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer

Robert co-founded Carnegie Foundry in 2019 to challenge the traditional venture and go-to market landscape for robotics and autonomy startups. His world class expertise in complex robotic systems, his track record in entrepreneurship and his tactics for successfully transitioning IP from concept to commercialization grew and evolved throughout his dynamic experiences and roles including an 18 year career at Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor, supporting the highest profile, mission critical programs. 

At Lockheed Martin, Rob achieved the highest technical leadership designation; Senior Fellow Emeritus. In this capacity, and as a Corporate Director, he supported multi-billion dollar business lines developing, adapting, and accelerating new technologies in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Automation, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, and Autonomous Systems.

Prior to Carnegie Foundry, Robert provided technology investment, integration, portfolio strategy and management leadership for companies in the aerospace, manufacturing, healthcare, financial and consumer goods sectors through his firm, X Tech Ventures. A key insight Robert leveraged in his work was that supposedly unsolvable challenges in one industry many times had already been solved in others.

Robert is a recognized and sought out thought leader on technology innovation. He has a robust following on social media and as a Forbes contributor and he has served as an Advisory Board member for Fortune 50 companies, University Research Centers, National Laboratories and Technology Start-ups.  

Robert earned Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Doctorate in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He has more than 100 publications and 30 patents / patents pending in multiple emerging technology domains.