Luc Steels is Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Independent University of Brussels, where he heads a robotics laboratory. It is part of the Computer Science Department and concentrates on three lines of research: the genesis of linguistic competence, 'software agents' and 'robotic agents'. Steels is the co-publisher of 'A Learning Zone of One's Own' (2004), 'The Artificial Life Route to Artificial Intelligence' (1995) and other works, and is the author of 'Kennissystemen' (Knowledge Systems) (1992).