Robots are leaving the factory floor. They already roll down streets and work in warehouses, and the next place they arrive is the one that matters most: our homes. Once a machine shares your space, speed and strength stop being the point. What matters is whether you trust it. Trust turns out to be a design problem, and it runs all the way from how a robot's body is built to how it moves, behaves, and reads the people around it.

This edition of Startup Arena brings together two people solving that problem from opposite ends.

Benedek Tasi is the founder and CEO of Allonic, the Budapest-based robotics startup that raised $7.2 million in the largest pre-seed round in Hungarian history. Allonic is rethinking how robot bodies are made, braiding them in one continuous automated process so they come out soft, compliant, and safe by design instead of assembled from hundreds of rigid parts.

David Robert spent years leading human-robot interaction at Boston Dynamics, where he was responsible for how their robots move and how they earn human trust. With a path that runs from Hollywood animation to the MIT Media Lab, he is now focusing on human-centered robotics technologies and design approaches.

Benedek is preparing the body. David is preparing the behaviour. Together they will get into what has to be true before a socially and emotionally intelligent machine is ready to move in, and how we prepare for the moment it does. It is a conversation we will remember for a while.

Hosted by Ádám Brándisz, Community & Operations Manager at HunBAN.

Alongside the fireside chat, the evening features live startup pitches and open Q&A with founders, angel investors, and the audience. Startup Arena is HunBAN's monthly meeting point in Budapest for early-stage founders, business angels, and the wider ecosystem, a place to see fresh dealflow, test ideas, and meet the people building Hungary's startup scene.

Agenda:

• 17:30 - 18:00 - pre-event networking
• 18:00 - 19:00 - Designing Robots for Human Trust: a fireside chat with Benedek Tasi and David Robert
• 19:00 - 20:00 - 6 startups pitching their investment case live

The evening does not stop at 20:00. From Create26 we move to Joe's Rooftop for HunBAN & Friends: Rooftop After Hours, to carry the conversations into the night over drinks and a view. (Separate listing, grab your spot for that one too.)

This event is brought to you by HunBAN in partnership with POV Budapest and TheScaleUpFest. If you are a HunBAN Member or hold a POV Budapest or TheScaleUpFest conference ticket, entry to Startup Arena is free.