The Food For Life Project

The Problem

By World Food Program estimates, around 800 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That is one out of every nine people alive on earth.

On another side of the coin,everyday there are millions of tons of food being thrown away as wastes. Typically from hotels, hospitals, restaurants, aeroplanes, airports and even at our own homes. 
Lets create  an app for smartphones, that connect people in need to people who wants to contribute food? Sort of like the Uber for food giving.

This could lead to a world coming together in a collaborative effort to provide food and nurture for each other.

The Challenge Breakthrough

Abundance of food available for all of humanity.

If Not YOU, Then Who? If Not NOW, Then When?

I invite your participation in these 3 ways; you can participate in one way, in a couple, or in all 3 ways.

Firstly, if you are a good app coder or you have a group of friends who code, you can join the contest, and create this history-in-the-making together. The first prize winner gets 100,000 USD. 

Secondly, you see that, by giving money, you can help in realizing this endeavor. Relishing yourself with the profound pride and joy you shared, that together with other human beings, you are making a difference in making the world of abundance a reality. You can donate as much as you are comfortable with, or you can go all out and contribute until your heart is content.

Or Thirdly,  this issue could be something that is near and dear to you, and you want to share it, you want to be a brand ambassador for it, I invite you to share it to as many people as possible, so that we as a world, together can come and resolve this issue once an d for all.

BEYOND PRIZE MONEY

“The Food For Life Project” is much more than an opportunity to win cash. This is your chance to build an app that would make an everlasting impact to humanity.

You would be recognized as the person/group to make it happen, bringing about a new era that people do not have to be constraint by hunger in their daily living. Think about what that would make possible for the world….

TIMELINE

“The Food For Life Project” would be culminate in an award acknowledgement ceremony on the 11th of February 2017 in Bangkok, Thailand. The event would be sponsored by the relevant agency of the government of Thailand.

In the same event, about 5,000 people who want to share food would use the app to install and educate it to people who wants to request for food, which would culminate as the inception for the usage of the app.

The crowd funding phase starts on the 1st of August and ends on the 13th of September. The amount to be funded is 300,000 USD

If you are the cool, app coders, we invite you to submit your ideas (and by the way, you can merge your ideas with friends who are also competing and collaborate with each other), by the 10th of November.

On the 17th of November, the finalists will be announced, which would begin the process of building the app till the 10th of December 2016. The finalists’ apps would be dowloaded by the community and tested till the 20th January 2017. The announcement of 3 winners would be done on the 21st of January 2017. The acknowledgement ceremony in Bangkok Thailand is held on 11th of February 2017.

See Timeline for more details.

What You Can You Do Right Now

• Click the “Follow the Challenge” button above to be notified of any updates.
• Click the “Fund the Challenge” button above to support in bringing the project into reality. Your support counts!
• Click the "Start Here" button above to register to compete in the challenge.
• Read the complete Challenge Guidelines for rules and requirements.
• Soon the FAQ section will be up. Read the FAQ to get answers to commonly-asked questions. The FAQ will be updated throughout the duration of the challenge, so check back often for new information.
• Share this challenge with your friends and family or anyone who might be interested in being part of The Food For Life and bring about building a future that was never going to happen by sharing this page.
• Use the Challenge Forum to tell us what you think of the challenge or to ask any questions.
• Stay tuned to the Challenge website for the most up-to-date information about important dates! 

Guidelines Overview

As the app is use for connecting the people who are in need of food to the people who wants to share food, it is critical to have this as a back ground mindset in creating the app. Some of the important elements are listed below:

Important Elements

• As the final app that would be eventually deployed are also use by people with humble means, the app should be design with simplicity, with the ease of use in mind.
• As it is important that the app is use at a localized level, for people in the vicinity to be able to contact each other, geo-location has to be an intrinsic part of the built-in of  the app.
• The request for food could come from homeless people in need of food, that could request for single meals, or could come for institutions wanting large amount of food and likewise, the sharing of food could come from individuals or from orgnizations like hotels, hospitals, airports etc.
• Try to think outside the box of what the app can do, say for example, an aeroplane flying into Congo, knowling it has excess food when it will land can place a request for a local food program institution to pick up the food from the airport at a scheduled time.
• What disclaimers that need to be put in the app.
• Can be used for both ios and android platforms.
• Please check that deadline for submissions are based on ICT timeline, which is of Bangkok Thailand. Please co-relate that with your own time zone. 

2 Distinct phases of the app creation campaign .

The app campaign has two distinct phases

• Idea creation of the app (I)
• App creation itself.(II)

In the idea creation phase, ideas can be submitted by written text, recorded voice message file or recorded video. The invidual/team must have atleast one person in the team who is competent at coding app.  Competing teams can merge thier ideas to become one team. Some things to keep in mind while creating the ideas for the app is ease-of-use, simplicity and out of the box thinking. The community voting for the ideas would want to be in the shoes of the real users to see if the idea(s), once deployable as the app, how would it look like, how would it feel, how easy for it to be use and understood. The idea creation phase on Nov' 16th 2016

App creation phase. Once the finalists are selected by the community and approved by the Food For Life Team, they start building their app and submit them by 15th of December 2016. 

Who Can Participate

The Challenge is open to competitors worldwide. The Prize is open to all individuals, age 18 or older, private teams, public teams, and collegiate teams. Individual competitors and teams may originate from any country. To be eligible to compete, you must comply with all the terms of Food For Life Project as defined in the Challenge-Specific Agreement, which is available upon registration. At least one member of the team should be competent at coding.

Registration and Submissions

All innovators and teams must be registered prior to submitting an entry. Submissions must be received on or before Nov 10th 11:59 pm ICT. No late submissions will be accepted. 

Submissions must be made in English. All prize-related communication will be in English. 

Submissions must be made online (only), via the online submission form, which is made available to registered competitors.

Number of Submissions per Participant/Team

Participating individuals or teams may submit one entry only, under which can have many ideas.

For the purpose of this competition, you as an individual or organization may work in collaboration with other entities as a team..

Phase I – Selection of Finalists

OVERVIEW

From the pool of applicants that submit ideas to The Food For Life Project, 10 Finalists will be selected and announced on Nov 17th 2016 on The Food For Life website.

The finalists will be selected by voting of the community based on the ideas

Please note that The Food For Life Project organizers reserves the right to alter the number of Finalists as necessary, based on factors such as how many applications were submitted, and assessment of technical feasibility given the timeframe for development.

QUALIFICATION CRITERIA

The following criteria must be met to be considered a candidate for selection as a Finalist and advancement to Phase II.

• Applicant must complete and submit the idea through the online Food For Life  website.
• Solution must be technically feasible, buildable, and deployable within the timeframe outlined in the time-line.
• Must follow The Food For Life timeline for all phases. No late submissions will be considered.
• The qualification criteria outlined above must be met to be considered for the Finalist selection process (see Finalist Selection Criteria to follow.)

PROCESS TO DETERMINE FINALISTS

The selection of the Finalists (assuming all qualification criteria are met) will consist of the following selection criteria (subject to change):

• Crowdsourcing: The submitted idea will be made available for community voting. The following submission form fields will be made public for the voting phase: Submission Title, Short description, Image, What does it do, How does it do it. Each community member can vote for his or her favorite entry, and comment on the top ideas they would like to see go forward on The Food For Life website. This is open to any entity wishing to offer feedback on the suggested applications.
• The Food For Life Organizers Internal Review: Based on the results of Crowdsourcing, an internal Food For Life committee will discuss the top 20 or so ideas and select those which will compete as Finalists. Criteria will be based around innovation, ease of use, unique approach to solving the issue, deploy-ability, and level of potential impact on the world. 10 Finalists will be selected to move to stage  II

ADDITIONAL CRITERIA

Below are additional evaluation criteria that will be considered by The Food For Life Team:

• How well does the solution address the issue? How significant is the potential impact of the solution?
• How likely is the solution to bring about the intended outcome of providing food for the needy worldwide?  Will the solution be simple and easy to use by the users?
• How is the solution innovative? Would it bring about sharing and connections in ways that were unreachable before?

​NEXT STEPS FOR FINALISTS

All 10 Finalists selected and announced will be eligible for award money allocated as part of Phase II. The Finalists will have until December 15th, 2016 - approximately 4 weeks - to build and deploy their app for voting by the community and approved by the Food For Life Team. Finalists will build a complete, executable app that can be executable on both android and IOS platforms.

The selected apps will be open to the community and the public for downloads to be use and tested in reality for workability.

Phase II – Selection of Winners

OVERVIEW

The voting/approval will take place from December 20th 2016 (good time to test the app during the giving seasons of Christmas and New Year) through to January 20th 2017, and will include only the 10 Finalists selected from the pool of applicants. Community should take these factors into account for the final application (see below) and do the voting accordingly. After that The Food For Life Team would, as well, take the factors into account and the weight of the votes for a particular applicant and announce the 3 final winners on January 21st, 2017. The first prize winner gets 100,000 USD. The runnersup and third place would get acknowledgement prizes. All 3 winners would be flown to Bangkok, Thailand with expenses paid for a stay of one week.

QUALIFICATION CRITERIA

The following criteria must be met to be considered for an award during the voting stage of The Food for Life Project challenge:

• Application must be completed by the end of the building phase (December 15th 2016). No late submissions will be considered.