Malaysian touch to intelligent food robot

GEORGE TOWN: A fresh food-making robot known as “Sally” can automatically prepare several ethnic dishes with a few presses on its touch screen interface.

There is also a Malaysian touch to the vending machine look-alike.

Penang-born K. Kathirgugan and the founder of the company, Deepak Sekar, built  the prototype and first edition of Sally in 2015.

The invention by California-based start-up Chowbotics can now prepare Mexican, Chinese, Indian, French and other ethnic dishes.

An American monthly business magazine Fast Company even describes the company as one that is “changing the way we eat.”

The robot has won several accolades since then, including being adjudged as the Most Innovative Product of the Year for 2018 by Best in Biz Awards, and a Silver Award in the Small and Medium Business category.

“I am of course happy with the recent awards but the credit goes to our company’s founder Deepak Sekar and the entire team.

“We’ve been working very hard over the last couple of years,” said Kathirgugan in a phone interview.

Kathirgugan, 29, first studied at SK Bagan Jermal in Butterworth before moving to SM Bandar Kinrara Seksyen 4 in Selangor.

K. Kathirgugan (sitted 2nd right) with Deepak Sekar (sitted on his left) and the Chowbotic team with Sally, the first salad making robot in the world in December 2015. Tai Yen Chung is on Kathirgugan's right.

He got his engineering degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the United States.

He is now the technical lead at Chowbotic’s China operations.

“Sally has a ‘feedback loop’ with a certain amount of intelligence, while a vending machine doesn’t.

“It knows there is food inside and it has to process according to requirements,” he said.

According to his mother R. Thilagarani, Kathirgugan never showed any interest in robots or robotics in his younger days.

“But he loved playing with Lego blocks and reading, mostly non­fiction,” she said.

Kathirgugan started showing his engineering prowess during his time at university.

Together with three other students, they designed a walker that enhanced safety for those needing assisting devices in 2013.

The design concept was ranked among the top three finishers at the US Annual Design of Medical Devices Conference in 2014.