Inspiration
One day, my refrigerator broke down. Due to this, we had to throw away perfectly good food that could not be eaten in time. This incident, combined with the awareness of food insecurity issues across the globe, made me wonder if there was a way to use my passion to tackle this issue. How could I ensure that entities with excess food can efficiently donate it to the needy?
What it does
FoodLink is an AI powered food distribution platform that connects three key user groups:
- Donors (grocery stores, restaurants, households), who can easily list surplus edible food they have
- Recipients (homeless shelters, food banks, individuals), who can specify their exact needs for food
- Volunteer Drivers, who receive AI generated routes to deliver food efficiently from donors to recipients
How we built it
This app was built using Node.JS and Express.JS as the backend, while using EJS for frontend templating. Furthermore, this app uses the OpenAI API to generate the routes.
Challenges we ran into
I ran into several issues debugging and fixing the AI script, as spawning a Python process from this environment was a little tricky for me.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I was able to build a full stack project, with working frontend and backend with a real impact.
What we learned
Through this project, I learned how developers work iteratively, working on one section at a time and putting it together. I was able to grasp the fundamentals of full stack development and develop a practical application of these skills.
What's next for FoodLink
In the future, I want to grow this by scaling up, by adding improvements in the app to make it more scalable. I would also want to add some impact measurement dashboards.
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