Project SYFFAH

Sharing food and fridges! Tackling food waste, hunger and electronic-waste simultaneously in NYC

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Inspiration

Travelling past drains with heaps of food waste daily on my way to the school was the first time I noticed the irony of the situation - In New York while 40% of the food is going down the drain every single day, 1.5 million citizens are going to sleep hungry. At the same time USA produces 7 million tons of e-waste annually. So, reflecting upon this, I was inspired to devise a solution that combats all of these pressing socio-economic issues simultaneously.

Problems we're combatting

  1. Food waste
  2. Electronic-waste
  3. Hunger amongst poor and homeless

What it does

Syffah, which stands for 'Share Your Food, Feed All Humanity', is a web application which has two functions:

  1. It will allow users to donate old refrigerators, which they otherwise throw away, which will be set up across NYC. People who have leftover food to donate can keep it in these community refrigerators so that the poor and homeless can access this food.
  2. It will also allow users like event caterers, restaurants, hotels and individuals to donate their leftover food by posting it so that NGOs and Hunger Relief Organizations can then directly contact them, collect the food and distribute it amongst the needy.

How we built it

  • I started off by analyzing the problem at hand
  • Followed by deciding the functionality and features of the app.
  • I have also created a business plan, including Revenue model, marketing strategy and SWOT analysis.
  • I then went ahead with the wireframing and mock-ups and worked on the UX/UI.
  • This was followed by building the front-end of the web-app for which I have used HTML, CSS and -Javascript and some php for developing one part of backend.
  • However, I wasn't able to develop the back-end in the given time as I was not familiar with the languages (for which I had planned on using Google Cloud services - Firebase). Hence, the project is unfinished.

Challenges we ran into

  • Authenticating user using Google Firebase services
  • Deploying Google firebase services
  • Was not able to implement the back-end in time
  • Trying to learn back-end development in a short period of time was challenging, but it was still fun trying as I learnt new concepts

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Our project promotes 5 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Tackles socio-economic issues of hunger and food wastage in New York
  • Increases accessibility to food for homeless and needy in NYC
  • The main pages of the website are responsive.
  • The UX and UI of the web-page - Simple & Easy to navigate - User-friendly (Designed keeping in mind the userbase) - Visually appealing

What we learned

  • Learnt basics of Google Firebase, cloud services
  • Was introduced to back-end web development
  • Learnt UX/UI concepts of cards, color schemes, typography, etc.

What's next for Project SYFFAH

  • Creating a fully functional prototype of the web app
  • Developing the backend using Google Firebase
  • Also developing an Android app alongside web-app
  • Conducting ground-work and research for deploying these services
  • Conducting market analysis, surveys and beta and alpha testing to improve the application overall

Impacts

###Environmental Impacts

  1. Reduction of discharge of GHG (Green House Gases) (by reducing food wastage)
  2. Reduction of water wastage (which is used for disposing food waste)
  3. Decrease in Groundwater and soil contamination (by diverting e-waste from landfills)
  4. Decrease in air pollution (due to incineration of e-waste)

Social Impacts

  1. Food made accessible to poor, needy and homeless people of NYC
  2. Combatting hunger among children of NYC who are worst affected by food-insecurity

Economic Impacts

  1. Helping NGOs and Hunger relief organizations save assets by making task of finding food less cumbersome
  2. No money wasted on recycling of e-waste (refrigerators) which also has harmful environmental impacts

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