Surplus2Feed

What Inspired Us

The idea was inspired by a personal memory from my childhood.

When I was younger, I used to collect leftover bread from our home and take it to the sheep at my uncle’s farm. After my uncle passed away, may he rest in peace 🤍, the sheep were sold. Ever since then, whenever I see leftover bread, I remember those sheep and the beautiful days I spent with my uncle.

This made me think about how food that may seem insignificant to us could still have value for animals. From that memory, we started thinking about a way to connect surplus food with nearby farms that could potentially make use of it.

What We Learned

This hackathon taught us a lot about working as a team. My teammate and I learned how to divide responsibilities according to our strengths and how to communicate and make decisions quickly.

We also learned how important it is to prioritize when working under time pressure. We built the project in just one day, so we had to focus on the core idea instead of trying to build everything we imagined.

How We Built the Project

We used AI tools throughout the development process to help us brainstorm, guide us, solve problems, and build an initial working prototype of our application.

Using AI this way also taught us a new approach to development. Instead of seeing AI only as a tool for generating code, we learned how it can act as a development assistant that helps us move from an idea to a working prototype much faster.

Challenges We Faced

Our biggest challenge was time. Building a complete project in one day meant that we had to make difficult decisions about what to include in the MVP and what to leave for the future.

Another challenge was finding a meaningful feature that could differentiate our idea from existing solutions in the food-waste space. We wanted to create something simple but useful rather than simply recreate an existing platform.

In the end, the hackathon was not only about building an application. It was also about turning a personal memory into a practical idea, learning to work efficiently as a team, and discovering new ways to use AI to bring an idea to life.