FoodSwap!

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  FoodSwap! logo

Impact: Managing diabetes often necessitates changing diet. Since food is such a big part of our lives, being forced to cut out favorite foods can be incredibly difficult and disheartening. Our app helps people adjust to a more healthy diet by offering substitutions that make your favorite recipes healthier. FoodSwap! is aimed at people with type II diabetes who cook or would like to cook for themselves. Food is an integral part of life, from family dinners to special holiday meals. Because of this, changing a diet is not easy. Often, people are forced to give up their favorite food or family recipes because they no longer fit into a healthier meal plan. Swapping ingredients for healthier ones takes the sacrifice out of the diet change. People can continue to make their favorites foods and share meals with family and friends, just in a healthier form. While diet is an important part of many diabetes patients’ treatment plans, it should not detract from their quality of life or separate them from family and friends at social events. FoodSwap! offers people the power to make the foods they want to, simply in a healthier form.

Innovation: As of today, nothing like FoodSwap! exists. While there are articles that offer advice about healthier food replacements, there are no apps or voice activated technologies that help people make their favorite recipes healthier by simple ingredient substitutions. Instead of looking up suggestions in different websites, our product offers a more centralized and convenient solution. When the user lists the ingredients of a recipe, the app will provide several ways of ingredient substitution that make the recipe healthier. These substitutions will focus specifically on aiding Type II diabetes treatment, such as reducing sugars, and suggesting more complex carbohydrates. FoodSwap! will utilize Amazon’s Web Service and Alexa voice technology, since Alexa is also available for mobile and web applications. This enables our product to be available on multiple platforms and reach the widest audience. Overall FoodSwap! presents an innovative solution to a problem that many people with Type II diabetes face.

Sustainability: This product offers ingredient switches to customers, so a lot of revenue can be brought in from ads. Instead of providing generic food options to replace ingredients, companies could pay to have their specific products endorsed by our app (e.g. Green Giant frozen vegetables). The more the companies pay, the higher their “rank” will be in the app. The rank of the ingredients will determine which products the users will be offered first. Since this product would be an application for existing voice activated technologies, there would be no issue with scaling, as we would not be relying on our own infrastructure, instead using cloud based technologies. Right now the focus is on people with type 2 diabetes, but later on the app can be updated to help people with other food restrictions or dietary restrictions (e.g. celiac disease). This could also help athletes or people trying to lose weight on maintaining their diets. In the future, FoodSwap! could be integrated with an online grocery retailer, such as Walmart or Amazon.

Team and Feasibility: Overall as a team, we have experience working together to create skills for Amazon Alexa. Most recently, for MHacks X, we created a voice controlled choose-your-own-adventure game for Alexa, which is currently available on Amazon. Altogether, the team has over nine years of programming experience in various languages and platforms, and are currently all pursuing Computer Science Engineering Degrees at the University of Michigan.

Haoran Xiao is passionate about web development and Python programming. He is currently developing a C++ image processing library as part of his research work. http://linkedin.com/in/haoran-xiao Meagan Sindone is interested in working with databases and collecting user data across a network. She is currently using Unity to develop a Virtual Reality game. http://linkedin.com/in/meagan-sindone-a57313138 Sameehita Mohan is incredibly passionate about using technology for assistive and educational. She currently works for the Mott Family Network, working with C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Ann Arbor to create websites and iOS applications. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sameehita-mohan/

As a team, we’re uniquely positioned to build and grow FoodSwap!. The team’s programming background and deep interest in computer science will allow us to build a voice-controlled app that is functional, easy to use, and user-friendly. Meagan’s experience with databases will help her build the backend of our app, a database with various ingredients and their substitutes in various situations. Haoran’s extensive programming experience will be vital to the team’s software development efforts. Sameehita’s experience working with patients in a hospital gives her a better understanding of healthcare-related technology and knowledge of features and functionalities required for an app to succeed with people. In addition, her experience with business and marketing and coursework in entrepreneurship will support the business side of the enterprise, assuring that the product reaches customers and that the positive revenue flow is maintained.