Once largely confined to the manufacturing sector, the presence of robots is being felt more and more in our homes, hospitals, restaurants and entertainment spaces.
One of the companies leading the robotics wave is Chowbotics, a California-based start-up which wants to bring “nutritious food anywhere, anytime, made possible with robotics”.
Chowbotics’ debut robot, Sally – which Malaysian hands helped build – has just been adjudged the Most Innovative Product of the Year for 2018 by Best in Biz Awards, an independent business awards programme in the US.
Sally won the Silver Award in the Small and Medium Business category. Judges sieved through about 700 inventions from a variety of industries in the US and Canada before picking the winners for the 8th annual Best in Biz Awards.
Touted as the “only independent awards programme” in the US, it is judged by a who’s who of prominent editors and reporters from top-tier publications in North America, including the New York Times, Forbes, Wired, Associated Press, Inc, Consumer Affairs, Healthcare Innovations News, Ottawa Citizen, New York Post, Investor Advisor Magazine, Globe and Mail and Barrons.
The Globe and Mail’s Andrew Seale was quoted by Best in Biz as saying: “This year’s Best in Biz Awards winners aren’t just innovating, they’re redefining their industries.”
Sally the Robot dishes out not only fresh salads but also Mexican, Indian, Mediterranean, Chinese, French and other ethnic food – all at the press of a few buttons.
Malaysian engineer K Kathirgugan and Chowbotics founder Deepak Sekar designed and built the prototype and the first version of Sally in 2015. Penang-born Kathirgugan studied at SK Bagan Jermal in Butterworth before moving to SM Bandar Kinrara Seksyen 4 in Selangor. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate is currently based at Chowbotics’ China operations.
When Sally was built, it was touted as the world’s first salad-making robot.
From what was essentially a two-man team, Chowbotics, previously known as Casabots, morphed into a leader in the robotics realm largely due to the visionary drive of CEO Deepak, an American of Indian descent. Sally is already dishing out healthy food to customers in offices, cafeterias and universities in the US and Canada, and since October Sally has also been at Buffalo Airport in New York.
When Deepak and Kathirgugan presented Sally to the public and potential investors in 2015, it could only make salads. Today, Sally can make grain bowls, yoghurt bowls and ethnic cuisine.
Sally’s updated software allows it to be customisable, to count calories and deliver precise portions according to the tastes and needs of health-conscious customers. It offers thousands of made-to-order meal options at the touch of a button. The recipes are cooked up by a team led by chief culinary officer Charlie Ayers, the former executive chef at Google.
Although Sally may resemble a vending machine, its operation is very sophisticated and complicated, and as Deepak told TechCrunch recently: “The major challenges are finding special technical solutions for dispensing different shapes and sizes of ingredients.”