Ginger is the name of the first robot waiter in Nepal. / Photo by: Julien Tromeur via Shutterstock

Robots have taken up a number of interesting roles this year. Now, one can be found in Nepal, where this particular robot serves food to customers. This new robot waiter, called Ginger, is the product of self-taught innovators who wanted to make a difference in the poor landscape of their country. This shows that a country doesn’t have to be a large nation like United States to make robots, as these inventors were able to create something useful and unique without professional education.

The startup that created Ginger is called Paaila Technology. Paaila Technology created this 1.5 meter tall robot from scratch, and programmed it to understand both English and Nepali for their customers and creators. This robot is also programmed to say jokes similar to that of Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, and boasts enough efficiency to serve food to their patrons. There are currently three ‘Gingers’ that are working at the Naulo restaurant in the capital city of Kathmandu. Ginger might be the first step to automating and creating robots that could help communities that lack humans. Binay Raut, the chief executive officer of the company, stated, “This is our testing ground, We are fine tuning it with responses from our customers.” He and his team, which consists of 25 engineers, with Raut himself being the eldest at 27, worked for several months to create this by hand in a small three-roomed office. While many say that Nepal lacks in tech infrastructure, the engineers made up for it in efficiency and painted the plastic body of the robots in a nearby car workshop. The robot is one of the main selling points of Naulo, which opened four months ago, and can accurately move around obstacles and people while carrying trays of food.

Currently, Pila Technology is in the process of patenting the design of the robot to eventually sell it to a wider audience