Tech Cafeteria serves up community, technology, and grade school nostalgia

Where can you learn what a city’s water system has in common with Facebook? Where can adults in Cincinnati eat delicacies from elementary school like square pizza served on vintage lunch trays? And what does any of that have to do with the local entrepreneurship ecosystem?
 
The answer is Tech Cafeteria, a program hosted every month by local software development consultancy Gaslight.
 
When Gaslight moved to Walnut Street downtown in February 2015, the company wanted to make sure it was involved in the innovation and technology community there and in Over-the-Rhine. The six-year-old firm, which works on custom software and projects like Bus Detective, opens its office every Friday morning to the community for free coffee and conversation, but they were looking to do a different kind of program to invite people into their space.
 
“We wanted to do something sort of kitschy and fun,” says Gaslight’s marketing director, Michelle Taute. “We thought, ‘What if it was like a cafeteria?’”
 
And so Tech Cafeteria was born. Gaslight invested in divided lunch trays and found sources for cafeteria-style foods. It gives out free lunch on the first Wednesday of each month, while hosting speakers on a variety of innovation-related topics.
 
They even have a lunch lady — sort of. Ruby the Lunch Lady is the Tech Cafeteria mascot, whimsically named after one of the programming languages they use. Lunch is served by lunch ladies or lunch gentlemen wearing smocks and hairnets.
 
“There’s a great nostalgia from picking up a vintage lunch tray and getting served square pizza,” Taute says.
 
That nostalgia has proven appealing to the Cincinnati tech and innovation community. Each event can accommodate 50 people, and there’s often a waiting list.
 
Of course, the speaker topics are just as big a draw as the cafeteria theme. Tech Cafeteria had its first event in March 2015, and over the past year has covered topics like designing Lumenocity, getting women involved in technology, and open data in the City of Cincinnati. The events often include different demos, such as 3D printing.
 
Taute says the company tries to engage a broad variety of interesting topics.
 
“I try to think of something I would like to learn more about,” she says. “We’re able to get a variety of different speakers now that we’re more established.”
 
Gaslight will continue that trend at its next event on July 6, with Sam Hatchett of CitiLogics speaking on data, analytics and water systems. Hatchett will talk about how innovative technology is being applied to municipal water systems that are crucial to daily life, but are often in disrepair and even crisis.
 
“Water pipes are actually a lot like Facebook in the way they work,” Taute says.
 
But to learn just how exactly, you’ll have to RSVP to join Ruby for hamburgers, oven fries and ambrosia salad.