Dr Hiroaki Kitano, Japanese artificial intelligence researcher, with his miniature robot football team. Kitano organised the first RoboCup (World Cup Robot Soccer) competition in 1997. The competition promotes the development of intelligent robots for use in hostile environments, and drives general advances in robot design and behaviour. The matches consist of two five-minute periods of play between two teams of up to five robots, with categories for robots of different sizes. Kitano is the founder and senior researcher at the Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Japan. Photographed in Japan.