<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.
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. The AI system would factor in these pickups when allocating different vehicles to different routes. If we are using our team members in rideshares then they would direct the drivers to take the optimized routes.
<u>Benefits to Stakeholders</u>
<u>The benefits to the restaurateur would be as follows</u>
As a socially conscious restaurateur 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 wants to join the "Five Loaves Two Fish " network, then they would be recognized as 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.
Benefits to the Blockchain community
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 delegation will rise. Media publicity will result in a huge goodwill for your stake pool resulting in increase in delegators and as a result more rewards. 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. There is no funding provided for day to day operational costs of this project thus far which is where your contributions would play a great part.
<u>Food donated by individuals, families or corporates.</u>
A person who purchases excess food and can't 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. a 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. This food pickup also would be managed by the App
<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.
Creates a real time route optimization system by which any food pickup and drop off at beneficiary location is done with minimal cost and time.
Benefits the environment by reducing food waste, reducing landfills, reducing land and air pollution by reducing CO2 Emissions. Also AI Driven app also is a “Green App” due to the fact that it actively minimizes fuel consumption, which benefits the environment.
Benefits poor and hungry, orphans, elders, disabled, low income housing dwellers, street people, stray animals.
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 by optimization of route planning and minimization of time and costs such as staff and fuel consumption for food collection, and segregation into what goes to which beneficiary and distribution every day and night. It can also be replicated in any situation involving delivery of goods or services.
<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 donors and beneficiaries. It will also be a model by which any organization can easily achieve Resource optimization and cost minmization with positive impacts for environment.
<u>There are various Blockchain based components here. They include</u>
The AI based app that can allocate available resources for the day to pickup from restaurants, direct them to the proper beneficiaries based on dynamic criteria, based on prevailing traffic conditions.
<u>How does the Blockchain contribute?</u>
At each location the food package that's picked up would be tracked using our App 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? Must it be stored in a freezer, fridge , or room temperature? These decisions will be done by the AI system and determine how to best do delivery based on food, its perishability, and closing times of beneficiaries , traffic conditions etc
<u>How would I measure the impact of this project?</u>
Number of restaurants onboarded
Number of food packs collected per restaurant per day
Number of food packs distributed per day
Number of ad hoc pickups and drop offs
Number of Corporates who donate food from functions who get onboarded
Number of Individuals who donate food from functions who get onboarded
<u>How will the outcomes of your project be communicated or marketed once completed?</u>
Once we are ready to onboard restaurants we would go to the Colombo City Restaurants Collective who have 57 restaurants ( https://web.facebook.com/ccrcsl/?_rdc=1&_rdr)) . We haave already spoken to them and many of them are keen to join the effort since they also are able to be seen as socially and environmentally conscious restaurants, and thereby increase their goodwill among customers.
At the same time we would quickly onboard several beneficiaries we have already identified.
We will also have massive social media and mass media campaigns encouraging people to make use of the system to donate their excess food from parties, weddings, corporate functions etc
<u>Can this project be scaled to address future challenges?</u>
The proposal can be scaled to address future challenges by bringing on board more restaurants, and more corporate donors, households. It can also scale up by increasing the frequency of delivery from once a week to daily.
<u>Will the project have a positive impact on the Cardano system?</u>
This project will have a positive impact on the Cardano system because it will enable any business to track deliveries from multiple pickups to multiple drop off points. Resulting NFTs can be stored on a private Database or sold on a public marketplace. It will also have a positive impact in terms of the massive goodwill generated towards Cardano from the various stakeholders
<u>Challenges and risks relevant to a successful implementation might include</u>
How to identify various undetermined variables at the time of proposal and include them into the AI to enable it to make decisions.
Covid related lockdowns which would restrict food distributions
Fuel Price increases
<u>Further Challenges and Contingencies</u>
These would include another Covid variant causing lockdowns and where our people 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 to overcome these challenges.</u>
Seek to identify as many variables as possible at the app planning and development stage.
Obtain special passes needed to do food distribution as soon as lockdowns happen.
We would have many alternative delivery people and office staff 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.