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Chowbotics

Chowbotics' fresh food robot, Sally, makes a variety of salads with the push of a button, offering a combination of convenience, safety and personalized nutrition.

The machine's container keeps ingredients protected from touch or exposure to the environment, reducing the risk of contamination. In addition to ensuring a more hygienic experience, Sally gives users the ability to customize meals from up to 22 fresh ingredients with interactive nutrition information.

Users can also select from preprogrammed meals at the tap of the button with recipes developed by Chowbotics' culinary team which includes alumni from Morimoto Napa, The French Laundry and John Muir Health Center.

Sally's combination of safety and personalized nutrition helps foodservice locations post COVID-19.

Grubbrr

Grubbrr, a hardware and software provider serving numerous markets — restaurants, stadiums, amusement parks, micro markets, gaming facilities and retail establishments — has introduced contactless ordering for many applications that integrates with management software. Consumers can use their smartphone cameras to scan a QR code that takes them to a screen where they can browse selections and place an order.

Grubbrr's omnichannel contactless ordering solutions integrated with management services also streamline business operations and improve the safety and security of financial exchanges.

Grubbrr offers access to a wide range of payment technologies, including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, contactless EMV and credit and debit payments.

Happymeter.ai

Happymeter.ai offers touchless solutions to reconcile hygiene with convenience and fun using "mid-air" technology. The "happyhover" detects fingers before they touch the screen and works with any input, including gloves, wet and greasy hands and long finger nails.

The meter is equipped with an LED retro pixel art display that provides direct visual and auditory feedback to customers upon active or passive interaction. Customers express satisfaction or dissatisfaction by showing their thumb extended upward or downward.

The computation takes place on site and only anonymous data is sent to ensure customer privacy.

PopID

PopID is a universal opt-in service that allows consumers to use their face to enter any building, be it a worksite, a retail store or a restaurant. Employees or visitors scan their faces into the system via the PopID website to enroll.

Once enrolled, users stand before a device to be recognized with or without a face mask. Once recognized, the entrance door to the location automatically unlocks.

The hands-free facial-recognition technology offers an alternative to key cards and eliminates the security risks around lost or stolen cards. The technology also allows mobile phone entry.

The platform can serve as an automated and frictionless way to identify individuals who have either been recently tested for the virus or demonstrated immunity to the virus through antibody testing.

Standard Cognition

Standard Cognition, developer of an autonomous checkout system for retailers, leverages artificial intelligence and cameras to enable consumers to shop and pay without scanning or stopping to check out.

Unlike other autonomous checkout platforms, Standard's retrofittable platform requires only light-touch installation with cameras only on the building's ceiling; it accepts cash or credit and can accommodate existing store layouts so that retailers don't have to reconfigure their stores.

The solution uses ceiling-mounted cameras as well as proprietary artificial intelligence and machine vision software to accurately associate each shopper with the items they pick up — without using biometric data.

Geoff Alexander

As president of Wow Bao, a fast casual restaurant chain, Geoff Alexander has leveraged self-order kiosk technology to make the dining experience more convenient and efficient.

In addition to allowing guests to place orders at kiosks or use mobile apps, Wow Bao provides the added convenience of letting guests pick up their orders from cubbies that alert them on the status of their orders, an innovation that the company offers as the first licensee of Eatsa's automated technology.

The 12 pickup cubbies and the mobile app bring a more streamlined customer experience.

Ruth Crowley

As vice president of merchandise and brand strategy at Hudson Group, and former vice president of customer experience design at Lowe's, Ruth Crowley has led the development of cohesive customer experiences that are emotionally and seasonally relevant and aligned with strategic company objectives.

She has emphasized the importance of human engagement in the design of customer experience technology, be it physical, digital or human, or a combination thereof.

"It doesn't have to be 'either/or,' I think it's 'and,'" she said during a panel on cashierless stores at last year's Interactive Customer Experience Summit.

Luke Saunders

As founder of Farmer's Fridge, Luke Saunders has taken a pioneer role in revolutionizing perishable food vending.

Fresh food vending was always the "necessary evil" of traditional full-service vending. Vending operators used their refrigerated food machines as tools to win customer locations, expecting to take a loss on the sale of the "fresh" food and making it up on their extended shelf life snacks and beverages.

Saunders realized IoT technology made it possible to deliver fresh food to locations in a timely fashion, monitor the sales in real time and track buying behavior to develop a menu based on location specific customer needs.

Krishna Vedula

Krishna Vedula, chief operating officer of 365 Retail Markets, played a developmental role in the company's Connected Campus, offering multiple customer touchpoints that all work together with one back end.

Vedula also played a role in developing the 365 PicoCooler, which allows customers to use their smartphones to unlock a glassfront cooler, select and pay for items, then relock the cooler. A small kiosk containing a chip reader for near-field communication payment attaches to the front of the glassfront cooler.

These innovations allow more product variety and a more rewarding customer experience with less overhead.

Renee Walsh

As CEO of Embed, Renee Walsh delivered a series of initiatives that helped pull family entertainment centers through the pandemic. She reduced Embed technology licensing fees and shared tactics for survival via nearly 80 EmbedLIVE episodes.

In April, she implemented Embed's COVID-19 Relief Act, giving Embed's Mobile Wallet to anyone for free for one year.

In May, Embed launched its COVID-19 resource center which offers free creative toolkits for any and all operators to use that facilitate a successful reopening and expedite business recovery.

In July, Embed introduced hygiene defense products to deliver safe, clean, longer-lasting cleaning products.