Food Waste Hackathon Czech Republic
During the weekend of 21 - 23 April 2017 the Food Waste Hackathon in the Czech Republic took place. Over 40 people joined the kick-off of the hackathon and for the nitty-gritty part of designing ideas on how to reduce food waste in the Czech Republic 14 visionaries, designers and programmers spent the entire weekend working hard on bringing their visions to life. To help them with their work there were 6 mentors with various backgrounds and expertise to help focus the ideas and give relevant information and feedback. Three groups were created and their aim was to find effective ways of tackling several food waste challenges.
The 3 Food Waste Challenges
The overall question we ask at all Food Waste Hackathons was addressed by Otto Zeman from Vodafone CZ: How can we use the possibilities of technological solutions to solve the difficulty of distributing food to where it is needed. In Prague we focused on finding solutions for these three challenges:
- How can we motivate children between the age of 11-15 years to care about food waste?
- How can we help food banks in the Czech Republic save more food from being wasted and distribute it to people in need?
- How can the distribution of surplus food be made more efficient for retailers?
In detail, these challenges and the circumstances around them were presented by experts from food banks, retailers, educators and communication companies.
To put the challenges in the perspective of the current situation of food waste in the Czech Republic, Jarmila Pilecká from the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences provided us with results on the research of the dynamics of food waste in households in the Czech Republic and its implications.
Věra Doušová from the Prague Food Bank presented the key challenges food banks are facing. Firstly, how can food banks save more food with the help of an efficient distribution system? And secondly, how can food banks engage more with people (who donate and receive food) to show the value of surplus food and food in general.
Yana Pancheva from Tesco Stores CZ presented the problem from the side of the retailers. Especially for smaller stores, it is challenging to organize the transfer of excess food to food banks.
Tereza Čajková from Glopolis who works on educating pupils on responsible consumption at the school level and thinks an app could be a good way to additionally help pupils understand the global dimension of food waste.
To put the challenges in the perspective of the current situation of food waste in the Czech Republic, Jarmila Pilecká from the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences provided us with results on the research of the dynamics of food waste in households in the Czech Republic and its implications.
Věra Doušová from the Prague Food Bank presented the key challenges food banks are facing. Firstly, how can food banks save more food with the help of an efficient distribution system? And secondly, how can food banks engage more with people (who donate and receive food) to show the value of surplus food and food in general.
Yana Pancheva from Tesco Stores CZ presented the problem from the side of the retailers. Especially for smaller stores, it is challenging to organize the transfer of excess food to food banks.
Tereza Čajková from Glopolis who works on educating pupils on responsible consumption at the school level and thinks an app could be a good way to additionally help pupils understand the global dimension of food waste.
Saturday and Sunday hacking, hacking, hacking…
On Saturday morning after breakfast, 14 visionaries, designers and programmers sat together with 6 mentors to brainstorm on the ideas to tackle food waste in the Czech Republic. After an hour of brainstorming, more than 10 different suggested app problems were developed. At the end, 3 topics for apps out of the list were chosen by the hackathon participants. The first application addressed a more efficient distribution of donated food to retailers and food banks. The second application focused on community sharing of food or „food-sharing“. It would also advise users on how to conserve food properly. The third application aimed to link restaurants and customers to help improve the distribution of excess meals.
The winner of the Hackathon was the application for efficient distribution of food between food banks and retailers, called “Předáno” (in English "Delivered"). Their app was seen as having a solid plan for developing, it had a very good structure in programming, and the potential impact was seen as substantial when looking at the context of food waste reduction challenges in the Czech Republic.
The winner of the Hackathon was the application for efficient distribution of food between food banks and retailers, called “Předáno” (in English "Delivered"). Their app was seen as having a solid plan for developing, it had a very good structure in programming, and the potential impact was seen as substantial when looking at the context of food waste reduction challenges in the Czech Republic.
The teams and their presentations
Sunday afternoon was devoted to translation of the ideas into comprehensible presentation of the app ideas and plans.
First team was dealing with food surplus on a consumer level in households as well as grocery stores and mainly dealt with monitoring of food expiration and food sharing as a way to build up communities. Food sharing is a concept that helps people as well as small businesses to let know other users of the app about surplus food that is currently available and to share the surplus. The app presented connected the possibility of picking and sharing food with others as well as tips and tricks how to store the food well at home or recipes.
First team was dealing with food surplus on a consumer level in households as well as grocery stores and mainly dealt with monitoring of food expiration and food sharing as a way to build up communities. Food sharing is a concept that helps people as well as small businesses to let know other users of the app about surplus food that is currently available and to share the surplus. The app presented connected the possibility of picking and sharing food with others as well as tips and tricks how to store the food well at home or recipes.
Second team developing an application called Eco To Go with a goal to make an effective connection of restaurants and their customers. In restaurants where a meal surplus is one of current problems this app aims to connect the restaurants with people that can buy the surplus for a reduced price.
The third team and their application “Předáno” (Forwarded/Donated) was reacting to the effectiveness of food donation at the level of retailers and food banks. The aim of the app is to make communication between these too efficient in economical as well as environmental terms. A simple app to help better communicating the needs of the Food banks as well as surplus food of retailers should help with distribution of donated food.
3rd and winning team
The jury and winners
The members of the jury Jan Bizík (Vodafone Foundation Laboratory), Martin Andrle (Tech Squat), Věra Doušová (Potravinová banka Praha), Yana Pancheva (Tesco Stores CZ) and Tereza Čajková (Glopolis) judged the presented app on criterias:
- How much impact would it have on food waste?
- How well thought out is the idea and possible implementation?
- How is the visible output/presentation from the weekend?
The main winner of Hackathon has become an application “Předáno” dealing with the distribution of donated food among major retailers and food banks. Their app was seen as having a solid plan for developing, had very good structure in programming and having a big impact due to the challenges in food waste reduction in the Czech Republic.
With the support of the Vodafone Foundation, all applications will be able to compete further to complete their work on the end product during the accelaration programme Vodafone Foundation Laboratory for 2017.
With the support of the Vodafone Foundation, all applications will be able to compete further to complete their work on the end product during the accelaration programme Vodafone Foundation Laboratory for 2017.
The prizes
With big help of our partners and sponsors we gathered interesting prices for the participants and winners of the hackathon.
- mobile phone and Ipod donated by Nadace Vodafone
- packages of lunchboxes, bottles by IKEA
- voucher for purchase in IKEA stores donated by IKEA
- coffee donated by IKEA
- jewlery Trashmade and T-shirts donated by Nadace Vodafone
- T-Shrts, notebooks and sunglasses
During the Hackathon we had lovely snacks for coffee breaks donated by Mamma Coffee and IKEA.
How does a Food Waste Hackathon work?
In November 2016 the first of our 5 Food Waste Hackathon took place in Vienna, Austria. Find out all about it here:
For whom?
Everyone interested in helping coming up with ideas for Apps or Website that could help Czech Republic to reduce food waste should participate. Programmers, Designers, UX Designers, Enviromental students and professionals, marketing students and professionals, entrepreneurs, ....
Besides helping to reduce food waste, you meet nice people, network out of your bubble and spend a fun weekend with great people eating delicous food.
Besides helping to reduce food waste, you meet nice people, network out of your bubble and spend a fun weekend with great people eating delicous food.
This Food Waste Hackathon is featured on:
