To all the energizing and inspiring souls who participated in the Ayadee Foundation’s Hackathon, thank you!
After ten days of deep dives and knowledge sessions, of mindfulness and laughter yoga, of team building and community, you have inspired me, and each other. You were ninety-three contributors, participants, experts, mentors and judges whose work led to the development of fifteen solutions. I am particularly proud of the diversity of this hackathon, as you came from thirty countries spread throughout five continents, and 47% of you are female. This group has coalesced into a community, and I look forward to continuing with you to build on what we’ve started in this ten-day period as we develop new solutions to reduce food waste. The closing event of the hackathon formed the launchpad of our community of purpose.
Many of the deep dives, knowledge sessions, wellness activities, and kickoff and closing sessions can be found on Ayadee Foundation YouTube Channel. In the upcoming weeks watch out for new content on this Channel, from leaders and changemakers. As our inaugural cohort, you will also have the opportunity to connect with the experts that we interview, to submit your own content ideas for wider publication on the Ayadee Foundation’s platforms, and you will have access to additional curated content.
Over the coming weeks and months, we will help you deepen the connections between each other, and we will invite selected companies, universities, think tanks, incubators and accelerators to collaborate with us and bring additional resources to this community. Through these deeper connections with each other and selected partners, we will further amplify our impact.
For those interested in academics, we will soon be announcing opportunities to apply for roles as non-resident fellows, and for students, we will offer opportunities to apply for virtual internships. Details on both will be shared soon.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not congratulate our finalists at the hackathon. Farm-to-Table, by Prithu Pareek, was unanimously chosen as the best project, connecting farmers and food banks to ensure excess produce does not go to waste. Tied for second place, the Mitakus Food Waste Tracking System, created by Boris Idesman and Roman Wolkow, and Witty Kitchen, developed by Joan Leung, Christopher Soh and Kyungmi Kim both also focused on tracking food waste. Mitakus focused on food waste in restaurant kitchens while Witty Kitchen focused on food waste at home. We plan to continue working with the finalists to obtain the resources and tools that will allow them to implement their solutions, and we also plan to continue working with the others that were selected to participate in this hackathon to develop the project ideas they started in this community.
I look forward to dialogue and partnership with all of you, and to facilitating and strengthening connections between you as we go forward together to reduce food waste.
Best regards,
Peter E. Johnson
Founder, The Ayadee Foundation