<u>The problem</u>
Vast amount of good food gets tossed in the garbage. It adds to landfills causing pollution and thereafter CO2 emissions and air pollution. Hungry children and people who could eat the food have no access to it.
<u>The Solution</u>
Create a system by which restaurants, corporate functions, Individual functions could donate their excess food which my team would collect and distribute to beneficiary locations.
Create a system whereby any social service project can establish transparency, trackability and auditability using the Blockchain.
Create a blockchain based AI driven app that can optimize multiple donor locations, figure out where best to distribute the food collected based on what the food is, and various other factors.
Create a system where freelancers and volunteers can easily join in and participate and be rewarded for their work and can exchange shifts without difficulty
<u>Relevant experience</u>
I have been involved in social service projects of all sorts for over 36 years, Have been on planning committees and packing teams for collecting, sorting, packing and distributing dry rations, clothing, medicines, fresh water for various weather disasters, natural disasters and in the 2004 tsunami as well as recent lockdowns. I also obtained special pass to carry out distribution of food rations from restaurants right through the curfew and lockdown.
<u>More details</u>
<u>More on the problem</u>
The allocation for a meal for a child used to be Rs 20 per day. ( 1 USD = 250 LKR so Rs 20 about 8 US cents). This became Rs 50 per day. This is inadequate for anyone let alone a growing child. Therefore most Children's Homes and Orphanages in Colombo ( the capital city) and elsewhere in Sri Lanka depend on donations. Sri Lanka is primarily a Buddhist country with significant populations of Hindu, Moslem, Catholic and Christian adherents. In all these religions there is great emphasis on doing good works in order to gain merit and thereby good karma or in order to fulfill the mandate of one's religious book. Therefore a common practice is apart from whatever personal celebration one might have of an occasion like birthday. childbirth, baptism, wedding anniversary, promotion, new job and such life events, one would give a meal to a Home. This practice is what keeps these Homes fed.
There are hundreds of restaurants in the city of Colombo. These range from food boutiques which feed the working man, to Five Star Hotel Restaurants which feed the upper class.
All these restaurants have to, by law, dispose of certain types of perishable foods at the end of lunchtime, or end of the night sales. They cannot be sold the next day. Of course certain foods can be kept for a few days, but even those have a strict expiry date whether or not they have actually expired by that time. These include breads, cakes, pastries, rice and curry lunch and dinner dishes, pizza, pasta, roast chicken, baked fish, Beef Stroganoff, vegetable salads, Caesar Salads and so on. The staff cannot even eat the food and often go hungry since its after 11pm when they go home. All this food gets tossed into the garbage.
This adds to the amount of garbage in landfills which increase CO2 Emissions. This is a total waste because this food could have been consumed by kids in childrens' homes, orphans, unwed mothers in homes, elders in homes, physically and mentally disabled individuals who are in homes and similar institutions, addicts who are in rehab institutions, slum dwellers, street dwellers, homeless people, beggars, and the list goes on.
<u>More on the solution</u>
Aim would be to provide this food which would otherwise be discarded, to as many of homes as possible, enabling them to eat food that's beyond the very basic meal that they get i.e. rice and vegetables or lentils.
The issues with some of the beneficiary locations are.
a. By the time the restaurant closes up and gives their excess food ( 8-9pm) these beneficiary locations have already had their dinner and even locked their gates. Therefore they wont accept food on that night
b. Even if they did accept the food for consumption the next day, they don't have enough freezer facilities to store the food to eat the next day. Therefore they would be unwilling to accept the food. Some locations are willing to receive food that can be refrigerated or frozen such as breads, pastries, short eats, pizzas and pasta.
Have multiple vehicles and dedicated staff to handle pickup from restaurants who are on board.
Find sufficient beneficiary locations to deliver the food on time, within a designated period of time, to ensure its freshness and suitability for consumption.
Scheduled pickups - Use an AI based system to track the food pickups from each restaurant. Restaurants can be on a dedicated pickup schedule if they are members and know they are going to have food available on a daily basis.
Ad hoc pickups - Some restaurants pop up stands, food trucks, who may not become members since they may not have food every day. They could use the app to request pickups from their location.
<u>Does this proposal fall within the scope of the challenge brief?</u>
This proposal falls within the scope of the challenge brief because it sets up and lays out a system whereby multiple stakeholders are benefitted.
Benefits the environment by reducing food waste, reducing landfills, reducing land and air pollution by reducing CO2 Emissions
Benefits poor and hungry, orphans, elders, disabled, low income housing dwellers, street people, stray animals.
Is able to track precisely what is collected from where, and how its distributed
Provides highly satisfying employment for the distribution teams.
<u>How the solution relate to the challenge success (Impact)</u>
Solution will enable rapid, systematic, lowest cost capability for food collection, segregation into what goes to which beneficiary and distribution every day and night.
<u>Does this proposal show clearly how it will add value to the Cardano System?</u>
This project will add value to the Cardano Ecosystem by providing benefits to the environment, stakeholders such as restaurants, food donators and beneficaries.
There are various Blockchain based components here. They include
The NFT based system to tag each food packet received from a restaurant with an NFT and track that NFT to its beneficiary location and upto the moment of distribution.
<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/397651>
The NFT that is generated in the form of a photo/video of the packages being handed to the beneficiary which can be sold on the NFT marketplace like CNFT
<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/397651>
A new NFT marketplace whereby social causes can launch NFTs in order to generate funds through sale of unique NFTs or through minting and sale of NFTs designed to track and provide transparency and auditability to any social service or charity project
<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/397281>
The AI driven app which can optimize route planning, pickup and drop-off scheduling in order to reduce costs and maximize productivity of limiter resources such as vehicles and staff
<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/398297>
The NFT based system which allows freelancers and volunteers to slot in and out of shifts, times and roles and get paid exactly for what they are doing.
<https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/398295>
The NFT based system where people can buy NFTs to support purchase of a vehicle, running costs , salaries and other costs of the food runs. <u>( We need NFTs, DeFi, Token sales and any and all other methods to raise funds)</u>
(this proposal)
<u>How does the Blockchain contribute?</u>
At each location we will generate NFTs for each package of food. That food package would be tracked using our App/AI system to its optimal beneficiary location. Factors as to which location would be such as age of beneficiaries, can they eat this particular type of food, what time do they need food dropped off and what time would gates close for the night, Do they have facilities to refrigerate or freeze this type of food, Can this food be stored, or must it be consumed on the same day/night? These NFTs can be listed on a batch minting basis on existing NFT marketplace like CNFT until our own NFT marketplace is developed.
As each package is dropped off that NFT is captured by means of photo of the beneficiary receiving the food package or box of multiple items which are identified by one single NFT. This photo would be available for purchase on our NFT marketplace which would be custom built for charity/social upliftment projects. ( Separate proposal for NFT marketplace - link given here)
A person on the blockchain can by purchasing NFTs on this marketplace can support specific families or homes / beneficiary locations who would be regular beneficiaries. IN this manner, they would be financially supporting these families.
Ideally we would be able to convert the crypto currency into USD rather than local currency to ensure that the USD would be easily convertible and not subject to the wide fluctuations of local currency.
The blockchain would also contribute through the AI driven App ( Separate proposal for AI Driven App - link given here) which would be coupled with the blockchain.
We would also have a DeFi app developed where the profits from the app would go towards running costs and further expansion of the operation. As more restaurants come on board, more vehicles would be needed and more staff needed to handle the increase in food pickups and drop offs all within the narrow window of time where the food is fresh and consumable. There is no point if the food is delivered three hours after pickup and its not safe to consume.
The blockchain will also be used to run a creative way of rewarding participants in a community type way. That is whereby they will not be treated as full time employees but rewarded for the amount of time they spend on the work, or based on achievement of certain targets or workload.
For example, instead of paying people a monthly salary and hiring them as full time staff, there could be multiple freelancers who would come in and do the quantum of work, and get rewarded based on how many 4 hour shifts they put in. The four hour shift can apply to the lunch run or the dinner run.
The four hour shift would cover their work of picking up food from designated restaurants as well as ad hoc restaurants and private donors and taking it to the designated beneficiary locations.
Each person may have a unique attendance NFT generated as they log in or clock in to work. Their work will be tracked based on time worked or targets acheived and rewards allocated.
This will allow volunteers from anywhere in the world to come and be part of this initiative. Perhaps young tourists as part of their holiday can spend some time volunteering on this project. While they won't be able to drive the vehicles they would be able to handle the pickup and distribution aspects. Even locals can become freelance volunteers and earn income for participating in pickups and distributions.
Some tourists and locals could also handle marketing aspects such as onboarding new restaurants and corporate donors, talking to prospective restaurants and corporate donors, mentoring new participants and showing them the ropes, creative work such as graphics, social media work, writing, doing posts on various social platforms, video creation for Youtube.
<u>Benefits to Stakeholders</u>
The benefits to the restauranteur would be as follows
As a socially conscious restauranteur they would rather not throw their excess food away. As a human being with a conscience, they care about those who don't have food to eat. That is why they are donating excess food instead of throwing it. This is why I know they will be positive about this opportunity for them to be part of a new sustainable initiative of mine. They also may not have the resources to do food runs and drop offs themselves and would rather partner with someone who would commit to doing this on a daily basis. This is what i will offer them.
If each restaurant who wants to join the "Five Loaves Two Fish " network, then they would be recognized as part of being part of this network who distributes food to the hungry and needy, through my FB page, Instagram page, Youtube channel and other media. Part of the role of the staff handling the pickup and distribution would be to capture photos and video. The restaurants are free to talk about it on their social media, other press releases and any other publicity that they want to use it for.
<u>Benefits to the Corporate/ Charitable Foundation providing Funding</u>
This will add huge amounts of goodwill to your company and your own staff will be motivated that their CSR project is something with so much social value and meaning. They will be motivated hugely and productivity will rise. Media publicity will result in a huge goodwill for your company resulting in rises in share value as well as increase in shareholders and market share
<u>Benefits to the Blockchain community</u>
This will add huge amounts of goodwill to your Community and your own community members will be motivated that their CSR project is something with so much social value and meaning. They will be motivated hugely and productivity will rise. Media publicity will result in a huge goodwill for your community resulting in rises in community value as well as increase in community members
<u>Benefits to the Stake Pool Operator</u>
This will add huge amounts of goodwill to your Stake Pool and your own delegators will be motivated that their CSR project is something with so much social value and meaning. They will be motivated hugely and productivity will rise. Media publicity will result in a huge goodwill for your stake pool resulting in rises in coin value as well as increase in delegators. You can also use us to set off your carbon emissions and buy our carbon credits and support us that way. This in addition to supporting our work with some portion of your profits.
<u>Food donated by individuals, families or corporates.</u>
A person who purchases excess food and cant eat it all can choose to have the excess food which is unopened to be donated through the AI driven app and our staff will do the pickup of that food. That food would also be delivered to a beneficiary. A family who has a birthday party. wedding reception or homecoming, anniversary party. job party, or corporate event can choose to have their excess food also donated via our App. This food would also be donated to beneficiary locations after having been picked up by staff.
Our values:
Saving good food from landfills and preventing CO2 Emissions from the food going into landfills
Why should good food be thrown and good people go hungry? Lets get the food to the people and save the earth at the same time!
Delivering innovative technology.
Creating a model of Transparency and Trackability that can be implemented with any NGO, any charity, Any socially uplifting project
Building meaningful, long-term relationships with restaurants, beneficiaries, private, corporate and NGO donors
Demonstrating professional excellence.
Empowering team-members to do their best work.
Licensing:
The software source code will be published under the permissive, open-source MIT license. All software documentation will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution-4.0-International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license.
We need to figure out the ways or best way to generate funds to purchase an electric vehicle to reduce fossil fuel emissions and also to qualify for carbon credits.
How to rapidly generate NFTs at pickup time since time is of the essence
How to rapidly generate photo NFTs at the point of food drop off at beneficiary location
Covid related lockdowns which would restrict food distributions
How to show the Catalyst community that they should support all efforts to provide for operational costs of this great project to feed the hungry, as well as using all possible methods to fund the purchase of an electric vehicle and other running costs.
<u>How to overcome these challenges.</u>
Find ways to take collective photos . or use the existing barcodes or QR codes on the food packaging to generate the NFT
<u>Further Challenges and Contingencies</u>
These would include another Covid variant causing lockdowns and where freelancers, volunteers or staff cannot do their job. Or else they cannot work for some reason due to illness.
Volatility of ADA may result in our being unable to meet our budgetary expenses due to rapid fall in value of ADA. The value of ADA may go down.
It takes a long time to convert ADA into local currency as its completely dependent on Binance's P2P marketplace. This can cause slowdowns or delays in getting LKR and thereby in the project implementation.
When currency is finally converted, prices of goods and services may be different from what we budgeted because prices have increased.
<u>***How does the proposer plan to deal with these difficulties?***</u>
How we would deal with this challenge is that we would have many alternative delivery people who can pick up the shifts of food runs if someone is unable to do so due to illness.
One way to overcome this contingency of currency volatility is to add a contingency fund of about 10% on top of the total cost. Another option is to find a trusted network of ADA holders who want to increased their investment in ADA without going through Binance P2P marketplace.
There are contingency plans in place for various outcomes whereby we would continue to work within the restrictions placed on restaurants during permitted times for distribution by the authorities. We have already got the curfew pass on multiple occasions and have a good relationship with the pass issuing authorities.