New robotics working groups and expanded platform leadership mark a pivotal chapter for the 30+ year-old standards body
RALEIGH, NC — August 20, 2026 — The TWAIN Working Group (TWG) today announced the appointment of Peter Bedell as Chair, effective immediately. Bedell steps into the role as TWG accelerates its expansion beyond document imaging, having recently formed two new working groups dedicated to robotics — one focused on office automation and one on production print — alongside its long-standing imaging standards work.
Bedell is a long-tenured volunteer within the TWG community, having contributed since 2016 through the participation of his member companies as well as through roles on the TWAIN Board and Advisory Council. He has been a consistent advocate for the organization’s growth, open standards adoption, and the technical advancement of its specifications, and was a driving force behind the creation of the TWAIN Direct Certification Program in partnership with Keypoint Intelligence — a program designed to give vendors a clear, tested path to standards conformance and to accelerate commercial adoption of TWAIN.
The Chair transition comes as TWG restructures to match its expanding scope. Joseph Odore, Chairperson Emeritus, will now lead the release and continued growth of the TWAIN Direct Interoperability platform and its surrounding ecosystem — a focus area the organization considers central to its next stage of development as it moves from a device-driver standard toward a broader interoperability and orchestration framework spanning imaging, robotics, and IoT devices.
“TWAIN’s mission has never been about standing still — it’s about making sure the industry has a common language as new categories of devices come online,” said Peter Bedell, Chair of the TWAIN Working Group. “Robotics is facing many of the same interoperability challenges that imaging encountered decades ago, and we have an opportunity to avoid those same pitfalls by championing open standards and interoperability from the start.”.
“Peter has deep industry knowledge and has been a part of this organization’s fabric for years. Passing the Chair role to him while I focus on platform growth felt like a natural progression for both the organization and its mission,” said Joseph Odore, who now leads the TWAIN Direct platform and ecosystem efforts.
With the formation of its two new robotics working groups — covering office automation and production print environments — TWG is extending its 30-plus years of standards development experience into an area where interoperability among robots, dealers, integrators, and enterprise systems is still taking shape. Bedell’s appointment is intended to provide steady, experienced leadership as these groups establish their initial standards and as TWAIN Direct expands its role as a broader orchestration layer for connected devices.
TWG will share additional details on its robotics working groups and the TWAIN Direct platform roadmap at TWAIN Converge 2026, taking place November 11–12 at Safety Harbor Resort & Spa in Safety Harbor, Florida.
About Peter Bedell
Peter Bedell is a technology leader with more than 25 years of experience spanning hardware and software, with a particular emphasis on interoperability between the two. Beginning with EMC Captiva, Bedell worked with hardware and software partners utilizing the PixTools SDK and served as a global evangelist for the Documentum enterprise content management platform. He later spent more than a decade leading sales efforts for hardware manufacturers Fujitsu and Panasonic,before moving on to lead the U.S. Licensing & Global OEM Sales organization at ABBYY. Most recently, Bedell worked with Keypoint Intelligence as a Principle Consulting Analyst focused on Interoperability and adoption of industry standards.
About the TWAIN Working Group
The TWAIN Working Group is a nonprofit industry organization dedicated to developing and maintaining open standards that enable interoperability between imaging devices, robotics, and software applications. The TWAIN standard is embedded in hundreds of millions of devices and applications worldwide and is recognized as the definitive interoperability standard for document imaging. Building on that foundation, TWG’s twAIn Robotics initiative extends open standards to autonomous mobile robots and robotic systems — spanning office automation and the production print environment — establishing common frameworks for fleet interoperability, billing, and device communication. TWG members include leading hardware manufacturers, independent software vendors, systems integrators, and end user organizations across the globe. For more information, visit www.twain.org.
