The pandemic has emphasized the need for technology inside restaurants, as consumers gravitated toward mobile ordering and delivery and pushed operators to add more types of tech-enabled takeout.
FSTEC, the annual restaurant technology gathering, is now hosting a weeks-long community from October through December to help operators find the best strategies for using technology to help them emerge from the pandemic.
The event, hosted by Restaurant Business parent company Winsight, will feature more than 40 speakers in a series of virtual sessions beginning the week of Oct. 26.
Speakers include a host of industry and technology experts, including Kickstarter Co-Founder Yancey Strickler.
“From contactless payment and ordering to everything off-premise, tech offers solutions to many of the challenges the restaurant industry faces,” said Chris Keating, director of events for Winsight. “FSTEC Community is an opportunity to bring together everyone from technology experts to solutions providers to innovative operators in one virtual place.”
The community is “on-demand,” meaning that operators can watch the events at any time of their choosing. It will also feature the same quality as a typical event from Winsight, which hosts numerous conferences, including the Restaurant Leadership Conference, FSTEC, Restaurant Directions and a new event, the Restaurant Recovery Summit, which is slated for November.
“As the premier event producers in the restaurant industry, this won’t be one of those lame ‘virtual events’ you may have attended in the past six months,” Keating said. “It’s on-demand, spread out over three months, interactive, curated and high quality—what you’ve come to expect from FSTEC.”
The event will include exclusive interviews with notable experts inside some of the industry’s most successful concepts.
They include Nicole West, vice president of digital strategy and product at Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Wingstop Chief Technology Officer Stacy Peterson Androes. Both chains have successfully used technology to not only survive during the pandemic but thrive.
Carissa De Santis, vice president of information technology at Dickey’s Barbecue, and Susan Ann Carroll-Boser, vice president of technology at White Castle, will also discuss their chains’ innovative uses of technology during the pandemic.
In addition, the community will feature webinars hosted by numerous experts, including several from Restaurant Business sister company Technomic along with Chowly CEO Sterling Douglass. It will also feature interviews with Restaurant Business editors on some of the most important technology topics of the day.
The event doesn’t stop there. The platform will also provide up-to-date information about new products and services, including the ability to chat with sponsors. There will also be discussion boards where people can ask questions, while the Restaurant Business editorial team will help gather information and data.
For more information on FSTEC, visit the event’s website.
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