One of the hacks from our Disrupt NY Hackathon already has a customer: in less than 24 hours, Gruberie set up a site, built an app, and convinced a local diner to install Gimbal beacons so they could test their service in the real world.
When you walk into a restaurant that supports the service, you can simply sit down at a table or booth, open the app, and see the menu without searching for the particular eatery. You pick the items you’d like to eat, enter your payment details (assuming it’s your first time) and checkout. A few minutes later, your order shows up at your table — all without interacting with a person, with the exception of the host bringing you water and utensils.
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After hacking together Gimbal, Atlantic.Net, and MasterCard Simplify to get the underlying service up and running, Sven Hermann and Vincent Volckaert actually walked around our Manhattan venue to find a restaurant willing to try out the service. After a few dismissals, the Skylight Diner let them install a beacon on each of their 45 tables and build their menu into the Gruberie database.
This wasn’t the pair’s first Disrupt hackathon: The team got third place at our New York event last year. While their previous project was a one-off deal done for fun, the team says they’re hoping to keep working on Gruberie since they have a working infrastructure and a customer already signed up.
Update: Gruberie picked up sponsor awards from Atlantic.Net, MasterCard, and Gimbal!