The Brief

BACKGROUND As a country without natural resources, Singapore is heavily dependent on foreign investment- over 40% of Singapore's GDP, or 1.8 million jobs that rely on Singapore’s ability to connect with the rest of the global economy. PROBLEM CEO’s are some of the most elusive, hard-to-reach people in the world. Even when you reach them, their guards are up, they hardly give you any time. BUILD UP 3 months of field work to uncover the habits of CEO’s, their antics and eccentricities during meetings, business conferences. Technological-Ethnography that looked directly at mediums, technologies and processes frequented by CEO’s in corporate America. We created a physical geo-targeted list of places where CEO’s gathered such as airport lounges and business conferences and identified key trends in user-experience within each space. SOLVE We looked to an incentive that even the most powerful people desired and delivered it to them in manner that would forge a connection. Coffee, served 2 cups at a time, and delivered through a process that would get 2 complete strangers talking. An ice-breaker that took the form of a Coffee Machine. We placed this machine at epicenters of art, commerce and power in America and the rest was magic.

An intuitive user flow was developed to mirror every stage of the coffee making process from Initiation until the very precise end of putting on the coffee sleeve. A robust mix of technologies were harnessed to bring the machine to life: INITIATION Proximity sensors built into the machine sense await 2 users. If only 1 user is present the machine will not start. A custom built user interface screen greets both users and prompts them for basic information which is later stored for CRM purposes. BOILING Custom-Calibrated LED lights act as wayfinders along the length of the machine taking both users intuitively down the line. The machines internal CPU’s and intranet system stores information from the users, and concurrently activates the machines internal hydration unit. The water tank is activated and pressure-loaded pump, delivers water through the boing tubes into the boiling tank. The boiling tank heats up the water until to the perfect temperature for coffee-making. GATHERING Beans are summoned by kinetic actuators located inside the machine prompted by the machines CPU. SORTING To ensure full sensory immersion specifically with smell and sound, a Bean-Cyclone was developed based by a electric motor, custom molded bean channel which leads to a clear orb lined with smell diffusers to release the aroma of the coffee beans. GRINDING The sorted beans then enter a special 3-tier bean grinder then which grinds the beans from its default size until it is fine enough for brewing and compacting. DISPENSING The compacted coffee beans are peculated within the hull of the machine and the CPU then awaits the presence of 2 RFID cups. When the receiver picks up the exact RFID cup signal and, precision censors (that can’t be fooled by weight) detect the presence of 2 cups, hot coffee is dispensed into both cups.

The machines internal intranet system is both uploading data in real time to a central cloud-base for follow up later AND download data from trending sources based on interests and industry specific sources that will be of interest to our 2 new acquaintances. The results so far have been very encouraging: - 53 million online impressions - "The LinkedIn of coffee machines." - PSFK - "Coffee and networking go hand in hand." - The Huffington Post In 3 hours, at a single business conference: - 202 cups of coffees served up - 397 name cards exchanged 5.6 minutes average face time with C-suite executives 1372 key connections made - Total investment potential of nearly SGD$7.8 billion generated for Singapore's economy