Please describe your proposed solution.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uwU_upBe3pZIUdIJ8yjy0YPxEJRm6deD8_h62NRsnSY/edit?usp=sharing
<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.
We don't have full time staff. If we are to use freelancers we don't have a proper system to enable them to join in on particular shifts when they're available, or for them to exchange shifts with each other. We don't have a way to track the shifts they do and pay them for their time and work. At the moment this is done manually.
<u>More on the solution</u>
Aim of this proposal is to build a Cardano based solution to easily enable freelancers or volunteers to pickup a shift and also to swap shifts when they need to. When payment is due, their working hours would be easily identifiable as well as the roles they have played during those hours.
Overall aim would be to provide this food which would otherwise be discarded, to as many 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. These staff or freelancers can easily swap shifts and be paid in a transparent and simple manner.
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 ( Proposal Link here) 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>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.
<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 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>Our values:</u>
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? Let's get the food to the people and save the earth at the same time!
Delivering innovative technology. - Tracking of food from pickup to drop off
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 and be the best versions of themselves as possible.
Creating opportunities for freelancers to easily work part time, and volunteers to effectively meet their volunteering goals and objectives.
Becoming a desired place of work for freelancers and volunteers
We don't foresee additional funding being needed for this programme since we have clearly defined the functionality of the NFT generating at each stage of worker transfer and registration. If further funding is needed we will take it out of our own funds and make an application in Fund 9.
Answer
<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 system which enables freelancers or volunteers to pick up a shift and also to swap shifts when they need to. When payment is due, their working hours would be easily identifiable as well as the roles they have played during those hours
This creates transparency in payments of salaries, wages and payments and can be replicated in any business involving full time staff, freelancers or volunteers.
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.
Provides highly satisfying employment for the distribution teams. Enabling maximum flexibility in terms of shifts and ability to take on as much volunteer or paid work as a worker wants.
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
<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. It will enable Transparency, Trackability and Auditability for every stage of payments to workers of the operation. It can also be replicated in any situation involving delivery of goods or services or any NGO or charity involving volunteers or freelancers. It can be used in businesses which involve freelancers as well as media outlets like Radio and TV stations, newspapers and magazines where people are on a roster and can swap shifts.
<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 Transparency, Trackability and Auditability in managing their workforce
<u>There are various Blockchain based components here. They include</u>
The NFT based system will be as follows
A Date and Time NFT. This will be created for each date and time. The time could be hourly or shift based, depending on rates paid being hourly or shift based. Let's say they are hourly. So every hour will have a different NFT. If each shift is taken as a block then a 2 hour shift would have an NFT.
Each worker will have a unique Worker ID NFT
Each Role will have a Role NFT.
The Worker NFTs will also be linked to Location Services to identify whether a person is in the right location to be picked up by the vehicle which is supposed to pick him up.
The Role NFT corresponds to every role. So the roles for a shift could include
1 team of driver and loader. Transportation NFT
1 Admin Person Admin NFT
1 Marketing Person Marketing NFT
1 Social Media and Content Creation Person Social Media NFT
People are able to pick up shifts by connecting through the system their ID NFT to the role NFT and the Date/Time NFT. They will be able to swap by handing off the role NFT and a Date/Time NFT away from their own NFT to the other person’s ID NFT. In other words the system will remove the Role NFT and Date /TIme NFT from the Giver’s ID NFT and allocate it to the Receiver’s ID NFT. There would be a smart contract connected to each of these NFTs.
So lets say the Marketing NFT is having a rate of 20$ per hour. If someone is doing the work of marketing for 3 hours on a day, his ID NFT will be tied to the Marketing NFT and the Day/Time NFT for marketing. The Day/TIme NFT for Transportation will be on a different schedule. Therefore the rates for Transportation work may be different from rates for Marketing work. So the Transportation NFT may have a rate of 20$ per 2 hour shift. So if a person has worked 4 shifts for a week, the system will recognize that his ID NFT was tied to the Transportation NFT on 4 separate Date/Time NFTs..
The smart contracts would have the rates applicable for the respective roles and calculate their earnings accordingly.
Also the system would ensure that one person does not hold more than one Role NFT for the same Date/Time NFT. In other words a person cannot be working as a Transport person as well as Marketing person within the same Date/Time. The Role NFTs and Day/TIme NFTs for a particular Role can only be held by one person at a time.
The system will also allow freelancers or volunteers to take photos of themselves doing the job using the app. The app will certify these photos that these freelancers or volunteers ( certified by name NFT) were in fact carrying out the work they had said they were doing. The Freelancers or Volunteers can then sell this on an NFT marketplace. The revenue would be shared on a 85% to freelancer and 15% back to Five Loaves Two Fish.
<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 NFTs handled of each role by freelancers or volunteers
Number of NFTs handled on each day by freelancers or volunteers
Number of Freelancers or volunteers working
<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 have 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
We will offer opportunities for school leavers, school goers seeking part time jobs, university students seeking freelance employment when they dont have classes, foreign volunteers who come from overseas to take part in charitable projects.
<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. It can also bring in more freelancers or volunteers who may come from abroad and be part of this operation
<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 effectively manage their freelancers and volunteers in a cost effective manner, with minimal or no disruption to the schedule .
<u>How this proposal meets Fund 9 Objectives</u>
Prepare a group of people willing and able to make contributions to the ecosystem.
This proposal will enable many people who want to support this project to get involved in various aspects of it. Whether the development, the promotion and marketing, the operations, the financial management etc.
Turn Cardano into an open source project & attract more developers..
Making this open source would help new developers to come in and build more functionality. Not only that, it would also attract all sorts of other skillsets and motivated volunteers who love the idea of giving a few months of their life to this project
Build real-world solutions based on the Cardano blockchain.
This project to help various NFT projects such as Five Loaves Two Fish - feed the hungry, and as a use case to build a suite of solutions for charities, NGOs and any organization seeking transparency. The various apps developed can be used across a wide range of use cases.
Improve tooling to support human processes in Catalyst. Accelerate the growth and evolution of developer & app ecosystem.
There are various tools that would be built under this proposal. The operational aspect of it is detailed here. This would add immense value to the ecosystem.
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
<u>Challenges and risks relevant to a successful implementation might include</u>
How to rapidly generate photo NFTs at the point of food drop off at beneficiary location
Covid related lockdowns which would restrict food distributions
Fuel Price increases
How to rapidly transfer NFTs between staff members since time is of the essence
Ensure no misuse of the system. People taking on shifts without doing the shift.
<u>How to overcome these challenges.</u>
Find ways to do NFT transfers with an OTP functionality which sends a code to the previous holder of the NFT and they by entering the code, also enter into the record as having transferred the NFT to the new holder.
<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.