Feed A Needy

DESIGN PROPOSAL

by Revathi Gopalakrishnan © Revathi Gopalakrishnan, 2016 Chennai, India, November, 2016

PROJECT PROFILE Feed A Needy is an initiative that aims to bring awareness about the serious issue of food wastage in India. The primary goal is to put forth a platform that would help the urban Indian to help reduce his/her contribution to food wastage. Food worth $8.3 billion, or nearly 40% of the total value of annual production, is wasted in India [1].

Although the main reason behind this is inappropriate supply chain management and lack of basic facility to store the food, the urban Indian is increasingly wasting more food over the years and this contributed to about 35% of all food wasted in India. This becomes extremely significant because India topped the world hunger list with more than 15% of its population being malnourished [2]. Given that India is already struggling to feed its population, if nothing is done to tackle the issue of food wastage, the current food crisis could worsen significantly in the coming decades.

SITUATION ANALYSIS In 2015, India topped the world hunger list with 194 million people. Farm output has been setting new records in recent years, with an estimated output of 263 million tons in 2013-2014. India needs 225-230 million tons of food per year; so, even accounting for recent population growth, food production is clearly not the issue when it comes to hunger. The most significant factor is that a high proportion of the food that India produces never reaches consumers. There are several reasons why so much food is lost, including the absence of modern food distribution chains, too few cold-storage centres and refrigerated trucks, poor transportation facilities, erratic electricity supply, and the lack of incentives to invest in the sector[3]. But the people who do have access to the food produced contribute to food wastage in various ways. Reducing this contribution by the individual to food wastage by connecting them with someone in need of food would create a positive impact.

OBJECTIVE The main objective is to reduce urban food wastage by Indians by giving them an easy platform to provide any excess food they might have to someone with a need. Apart from individuals this initiative is also aimed at restaurants, grocery stores, caterers, event halls and offices.

THE LOGO A simple and clean logo was designed. A simplistic truck in movement on a plate symbolises connectivity as the main goal of the initiative is to connect people with excess food to people who have a need.

HOW IT WORKS The general idea is to reduce food wastage by connecting people with excess food to people who go hungry by utilising the popularity of mobile applications. In the app the person with the excess food can key in details about their location and quantity of food available and is immediately provided with details about the nearest hunger hot spot. Crowd sourced data about various hunger hot spot like orphanages, old age homes, shelters, slums or impoverished areas will be verified by volunteers before being available on the app. The details of the supply and need will be shared with the user as well as the nearest volunteer through the app. The user can either deliver the food to the place of need himself or request for a pickup in which case the volunteer will collect and deliver the food.

MOBILE APP - SKETCHES The main goal of the app is to make it easier for the user to find the nearest hunger hotspot based on the quantity of food that is in excess. The biggest problem with food wastage is not knowing that there is someone nearby who might need the food. Keeping this in mind the following mission statement was decided for the Feed A Needy app.

Connect people with excess food to those in need of it.

The sketches were created to map out the user flow and to add the necessary features, actions and pieces of information required to design a successful app that has connectivity as it’s biggest goal.

WIREFRAMES The welcome screen features an animated logo or app icon to reinforce branding as it will be the users first contact with the app. Once the user logs in, they will be asked to fill in a form or answer a questionnaire to determine how much food is available. After that the user is taken to the loading animation screen while the app algorithm searches for the nearest hunger hotspots. The hotspots are displayed on the map and the user can click on the various hotspots to learn more about the place and make a decision about where to deliver the excess food. A listing view can also be made available. Once the user selects the hunger hotspot, the location details are displayed. In the case that the user is unable to make the delivery himself he can request for a volunteer who will pick up and deliver the food to the place of need. When the food has been delivered, the user receives a notification.

HIGH FIDELITY DESIGN

CONCLUSION Food wastage is an issue that has a global consequence. According to a report by the National Resources Defence Council, India and China alone cause a loss 1.3 billion tonnes of food wastage every year. Although many efforts to rein in food wastage have been taken by the Indian government, the depth of the problem is such that the impact of these efforts aren’t enough. We need to effectively use technology and come up with innovative ways to reduce food wastage as much as possible. Bringing awareness about this issue is the first step to tackling the problem. A socially aware person is more likely to actively take part in an initiative and bring about a positive impact to society.

BIBLIOGRAPHY [1] ‘Tackling food wastage in India’. Development News. Accessed 10 November 2016. <http://www.developmentnews.in/tackling-food-wastage-india/> [2] ‘India tops world hunger list with 194 million people’. The Hindu. Accessed 11 November, 2016. <http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-is-home-to-194million-hungrypeople-un/article7255937.ece> [3] ‘India must tackle food waste’. World Economic Forum. Accessed 11 November 2016. <https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/08/india-perishable-food-waste-populationgrowth/>