The 5th Annual IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA) will be held in the Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, USA on April 22-23, 2013. TePRA is aimed at catalyzing the development of enabling technologies and encouraging their adoption by robot designers. With an emphasis on practical applications and industrial participation, TePRA provides researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and robotics professionals with a forum balanced between an academic conference and an exhibition, while presentations are selected through IEEE's rigorous peer-review process. Past TePRA conferences featured leaders in the field as keynote speakers including Rob Maline (JGRE), Mick Mountz (Kiva), Jorgen Pedersen (RE2), Hanu Singh (WHOI), Eddie Tunstel (JHU), Colin Angle (iRobot), Helen Greiner (CyPhy Works), Gill Pratt (DARPA), Mike Rufo (Boston Engineering), Tom Ryden (Vgo Communications), Kevin Blankespoor (Boston Dynamics). As an emerging robotics conference, past TePRA programs included more than 150 technical paper and poster presentations combined, robot demonstrations, student competitions sponsored by iRobot, panel sessions and exhibits