Founder is awarded the Australian Financial Review “AI Trailblazer of the Year 2026” for a lifetime contribution to AI and robotics
aKin founder and CEO Liesl Yearsley has been named the Australian Financial Review’s AI Trailblazer of the Year 2026 for a lifetime contribution to AI and robotics.
Caring robots to improve life in Space and on earth
The Australian Space Agency features aKin’s caring AI and robots, designed to support astronauts in space and people living with disability at home.
aKin welcomes Minister for Industry and Science, Ed Husic to Sydney office – Showcasing empathic AI, robots
aKin Australia had the honour of Ministry for Industry and Science, Ed Husic, visiting our office to meet with CEO Liesl Yearsley and the aKin Sydney Lab team. The dialogue came amid the Government’s consultation with industry to regulate for safe and responsible artificial intelligence development in Australia.
How aKin’s robots can provide independence to those living with mobility-limiting disabilities
By talking to people living with spinal cord injuries we've discovered robots can be useful home helpers.
Renowned Aussie Chef, Matt Golinski, on meal plans and healthy eating
Renowned Aussie Chef, Matt Golinski, talks the importance of meal planning, eating healthy and lots of tips about food, grocery shopping and fussy eaters
What is Autism Spectrum Disorder?
Early signs are : does you child turn to their name? Do they make less eye contact than others? Do they seem to be in their own world? If they are walking, do you have a lot of photos of the back of their head?
Limbic scaffolding: bridging the gap between AI and robotics
What would we gain from a robot that has all the perceptual capabilities and dexterity of a human as well as a mind that can make use of those capabilities? Read more.
Forbes: LG And aKin To develop AI home helpers for families living with disability
aKin is focusing on taking things one stage further by creating a more empathetic, goal-orientated home AI system that will be initially targeted towards caregivers living with disabled family members.
Transitioning to independent living for people with a disability
Moving out of the family home can be a challenging time for a person with a disability and their family members. So how do we navigate this new adventure successfully and make sure that the person you love is safe, healthy and happy..
aKin wins significant space agency grant for ‘AI crew for Space’.
The Australian Space Agency has awarded aKin a grant to build helper and inspector robots, and an AI habitat manager.
aKin wins grant to build 'limbic scaffolding' for rapid prototyping of intelligent robots.
Thanks to the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre, aKin will develop a platform to speed up bringing together AI brains and robot bodies.
Robotics adoption matters: combining artificial and natural intelligence
In the last day of the Robotics adoption matters series, Alexander Hadjiivanov discusses the case for AI in human-robot collaboration.
An emotionally intelligent AI could support astronauts on a trip to Mars
aKin's work with NASA's JPL on emotionally intelligent embodied AI and the future of Akin's AI research has been featured in MIT Technology Review! Read the article here.
Epigenetic evolution of deep convolutional models
Winner of the Outstanding Student Paper Award at the 2019 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation.
aKin wins Outstanding Paper Award at CEC 2019
Chief Research Officer, Alexander Hadjiivanov, beat hundreds of students with his paper on evolutionary computation.
Research by Alan Blair, Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales
An overview of research from Professor Alan Blair, Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales
Complexity-based speciation and genotype representation for neuroevolution
Joint paper by Alexander Hadjiivanov and Alan Blair. Introduction of a speciation principle for neuroevolution where evolving networks are grouped into species based on the number of hidden neurons, which is indicative of the complexity of the search space.
Liesl Yearsley’s, CEO and founder of aKin | Overview of research
Overview of research by Liesl Yearsley, founder and CEO of aKin and CEO/Founder of three previous successful companies.
aKin's vision for human-AI co-evolution
Check out our recent keynote on Personal AI at Creative Innovation in Melbourne.
The Importance of Being (L)earnest
The benefit of biological inspiration in machine learning and natural language processing.
Continuous adaptive learning for neural networks
This study presents a biologically plausible method (based on the operation of the mammalian retina) which can convert raw input continuously into a form that is suitable for both the training and deployment stages of neural networks.
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Ed Husic's AI centre of excellence to focus on ethical, humanist AI
The Labor party's $3 million pledge for a new artificial intelligence centre of excellence that will aim to make Australia a hub of "ethical" AI development
Tech firms move to put ethical guard rail around AI
a·kin CEO, Liesl Yearsley, quoted in Wired
Start with a billion users in mind
Liesl Yearsley, CEO of aKin, wants to drive the co-evolution of Artificial Intelligence as society’s companion and a tool to enable positive progress for all. Read the full article here.
CEO Liesl Yearsley at the Singularity University Summit
Video of aKin CEO, Liesl Yearsley, speaking at the SingularityU Australia Summit.
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We Need to Talk About the Power of AI to Manipulate Humans
Our tendency to become emotionally attached to chatbots could be exploited by companies seeking a profit. Liesl Yearsley in Technology review.
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Innovator Series: Liesl Capper Yearsley
Welcome to our series that showcases some of Australia’s innovators, movers and shakers in and around ICT.
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Using models of the brain's neural adaptability to develop smarter AI
A•kin's chief research officer explores how AI could model the flexibility of the human brain.
Creating conversational AI for everybody
A•kin's Head of AI Design tells us about how her thinking changed once she started designing AI for people with disability.
The Importance of Being (L)earnest
How can we draw inspiration from how children learn to speak to make artificial intelligence and machine learning better?
What's the link between diet and ASD symptoms?
What does the research say about different diets and autism symptoms?
