In this time of plenty, many throw out their food ¬ mostly because they do nott know how to cook it, or they do not remember what they have bought. Foodful.ly works to stop food waste by addressing these two use problems – tracking food purchases using e-receipts and sending spoilage reminders and recipes with cooking tips. This project proposes a solution that tracks food purchases, models food spoilage, and simplifies meal planning. Foodful.ly is a web service and mobile application that, when associated with a credit card or email, tracks food purchase from the point of purchase using increasingly available electronic receipts. These electronic receipts are parsed quickly to a user’s inventory, and users are alerted when items are most likely to spoil according to independently developed spoilage algorithms. Recipes are sent to users based on learned preference and cooking experience level that uses these likely-to-spoil foods, minimizing the amount of food waste and time spent planning meals. This will ultimately result in health benefits and cost savings for users, as well as more time to spend living fully.
This project seeks to create a set of electronic training modules that can be taken by individuals who work with LGBT refugees and asylum-seekers anywhere in the world. These trainings would help eliminate inherent bias, misinterpretation, and discrimination present in these systems toward LGBT individuals. The modules would be made available in a variety of formats to ensure that compatibility issues do not hinder these efforts. The project would focus on NGO’s and government agencies in Texas and in Nairobi, Kenya because of the overwhelming need that has developed due to the political climate in that region. By establishing a non-profit in the U.S. with the sole purpose of developing this training program and getting it into the right hands, this project ensures that anyone working with refugees has the proper level of education to complete their jobs effectively. The program would serve the additional purpose of identifying those who are overtly discriminatory toward this population, and allow officials to steer LGBT refugees toward safer and more accepting environments. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Conflict & Development” Category)
The urban arts centers of Nairobi, Kigali, Dar-es-Salaam, and Kampala are hubs for thousands of young and established visual artists, many of whom work in collectives or group studio spaces. The work coming out of East Africa is radiant and intelligent — it reveals slices of contemporary life from incisive, humorous and optimistic perspectives. It also varies widely in form; from painting, sculpture, and assemblage, to installation, photography, and digital media. Through on-the-ground fieldwork, this project plans to launch a one-month intensive documentation project in Summer 2015 to collect stories from the East African urban arts centers of Nairobi, Kigali, Dar-es-Salaam, and Kampala. These materials will be used to produce a series of short videos. The videos, photographs, and interviews will be presented together on the AfroArt East Africa website (www.afroart.us). An expansion of this project in the future will be used to assemble the short videos into a feature-length documentary, which will be presented in the United States, film festivals and other relevant venues.
The lack of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs that take into account menstrual hygiene and management (MHM) creates asymmetrical negative impacts on women and girls. The Pachamama Project is the first MHM initiative of its kind in Mexico and Bolivia and builds on the successes and challenges encountered during its initial fieldwork and on previous health focused research efforts on MHM. MHM will not become a priority for gender, water, and rights concerns unless researchers and practitioners make deliberate efforts to mainstream MHM into human rights and WASH based initiatives. By framing MHM as a human rights issue, the Pachamama Project taps into larger discourses of justice and gender equality instead of sidelining MHM from the global water, sanitation, and hygiene development agenda. By fostering community discussion, education, and participation in MHM activities, the Pachamama Project will enable structural change on the communities’ terms, while broadening understandings of the human rights connection to water, sanitation, and gender equity.
Sahay is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platform connecting workers in the household informal sector (e.g. domestic help, cooks, drivers, security guards, etc.) in India with employment opportunities. Using the web page, Short Message Service (SMS) system, or Interactive Voice Response (IVR) interface, rural and migrant workers can search for jobs posted on Sahay’s platform by urban households. The solution will allow workers to search for jobs beyond their geographically restricted network. The platform will support technically literate job posters through a web interface, and will support workers in the informal sector through a mobile interface and IVR system.
In developing countries, maternal mortality rates are shockingly high in comparison to the rates in developed countries. The most common cause of maternal mortality is postpartum hemorrhage (PPH). This devastating condition is easily treated in the developed world, where mortality rates due to PPH are close to nil. In the developing world, however, these treatments may take too much time and/or money to obtain or may require skilled workers to perform. Thus, women with PPH are instead treated with an anti-shock garment. This garment applies pressure to the suffering women in order to combat the effects of PPH, yet it has no pressure detecting or reporting capabilities. The project aims to reduce the overwhelming rates of maternal mortality associated with PPH in developing countries by creating a pressure detecting and reporting device, specific to the anti-shock garment.
The eradication of malaria is hampered by the ability of current diagnostic tools to detect very low-density infections in asymptomatic patients. In response to this, the aim is to employ loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), an innovative and novel technique to test for asymptomatic malaria. This low-cost technique is faster and more accurate compared to currently employed diagnostic tests. In Kenya, the aim is to (1) conduct a hotspot identification campaign using LAMP techniques to detect the malaria parasite, and (2) build capacity to ensure sustainability and local participation in the hotspot identification campaign. Results of this hotspot identification campaign will become an essential tool in future anti-malaria interventions.
The project strives to establish a communication between the United States and Russia that will discuss issues through authentic and open dialogue using social media. As a first step, the team will make a movie showing how Russian adopted kids have been raised in America. It will be a way to demonstrate that a recent politically-motivated ban of adoptions in Russia by American citizens hurts thousands of innocent kids.
The Food Bikery seeks to prove that food bikes are an economically viable, safe, and legal alternative to food trucks. In transitioning mobile food off of trucks and onto bicycles, the Food Bikery will: 1. Lower oil consumption; 2. Stimulate economic opportunities for low-income food entrepreneurs; 3. Increase physical well-being and health; 4. Foster awareness about the power of bicycles. The Food Bikery will harness the positive aspects that food trucks foster (economic opportunity, bringing fresh food into “food deserts” and community space), while minimizing their harmful environmental impacts. A prototype will be built of a scalable, turn-key food bike that can be used as a model to boost small business ownership among aspiring, environmentally conscious entrepreneurs, while shifting the current mobile food-business portfolio towards a low-carbon model.
