[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.
Answer
<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
[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
<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>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 have got funded but for some reason have not completed, to get the help they need. They will then be able to contribute with their existing project and new projects
Turn Cardano into an open source project & attract more developers..
Showing POA would help projects which have stalled to come back. This attracts new developers
Build real-world solutions based on the Cardano blockchain.
Once they are back on track people become capable and can build real world solutions. Therefore this proposal is very valuable
Improve tooling to support human processes in Catalyst. Accelerate the growth and evolution of developer & app ecosystem.
Getting back on track helps people create tools to support human processes and will definitely accelerate the growth of developers and apps, since they have the help they need to get their existing project on track and can apply for new funding
[IMPACT] 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 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.
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.
Please provide a detailed plan and timeline for delivering the solution.
<u>Restaurants</u>
We will onboard at least 1-2 restaurants onto the network to commence food pickups at least once a week.
We will identify on which day or days of the week they want to be visited and plan our schedule
<u>Beneficiary Locations</u>
We will identify at least 3 beneficiary locations to visit. We will identify what sort of foods they want to eat and how often. Based on this we will allocate donors to these beneficiaries.
<u>Carbon Credits</u>
We have talked to BlockCarbon and will talk to any other Carbon credit blockchain companies in order to figure out the best way to obtain carbon credits for our operation in terms of volumes of food collected and saved from landfills. Each restaurant would possibly give 10-20kg of food each night for distribution.
If we get our operational requirements funded (Proposal Link Here) we will
Expand our operations from once a week to daily ie 7 nights a week
Month 1 - Construction of a HIgh Canopy for the Toyota Hilux Single Cab which will enable food to be carried in the rear area of the Vehicle
Hire at least 2- 4 staff to run the operation.on a daily basis. Since the same two people cannot work seven days of the week, we would have at least two teams.
If we are not hiring we will need at least 4 freelancers to cover this workload
Identify full time staff or freelancers for roles such as Marketing, Admin, Creative work, Social Media etc, Onboarding and training new freelancers.
We will onboard 1-3 restaurants onto the network to commence daily food pickups once Canopy is completed. We will identify how many days of the week they want to be visited and plan our schedule
We will identify at least 3 beneficiary locations to visit. We will identify what sort of foods they want to eat and how often. Based on this we will allocate donors to these beneficiaries.
Commencement of building the NFTs for pickup and NFTs at drop off functionality (proposal link here)
Commencement of the AI Driven App development
Month 2 - Completion of NFT and AI app solutions and testing phase starts
Month 3 - Testing is concluded with data analyzed for areas of improvement. If more restaurants come on board, further testing can be done to put more load on the system
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<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
HOW CAN WE DO MULTIPLE PROJECTS AT THE SAME TIME.
If we are considering translation projects, each language pair (e.g English to Hindi ) has one or two Master Translators and one or two Proofreaders. The Master Translators are native speakers and experienced in the translation field They would do the translation and its given to the proofreader for quality checking. Any modifications are given back to the Master Translator who then amends the text and finalizes the text. If the workload is large we would use two Master Translators and two proofreaders instead of one.
As such , since each language pair has a dedicated team we are able to concurrently do 1, 2 5 10 or 100 language pairs at the same time. NO team is working on multiple projects. Each is dedicated to their project.
Same applies to dev projects. We have teams working on each project or app. No one is overstretched for time or energy. Therefore we can confidently undertake multiple projects at the same time
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.
<u>Budget</u>
Creation and Deployment of AI driven app to optimize route planning, minimise costs including staff costs, fuel costs, fuel consumption and time spent on route. Ability to factor in other criteria such as foods picked up, food preferences of beneficiaries, desired frequency of beneficiaries for drop offs, traffic conditions 27900 USD
Social Media Campaign to promote this to other organizations and NGOs. 4000 USD
Administration and Management for first three months 9000 USD
Contingency 4000 USD
Total 44900 USD
Budget Breakdown
2 Blockchain Developers 70$ per hour -160 hours (each) * 22400 USD
1 UI/UX Developer 60$ per hour 50 hours = 3000 USD
Quality Assurance Developer 50$ per hour 50 hours = 2500 USD
Total Development Cost 27900 USD
[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.
Team (Feasibility)
Project Website <https://web.facebook.com/fiveloavestwofish777/>
DImitri Fernando
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitrifernando777/>
Active member of Catalyst Community - General Ada holder in Catalyst Circle V3, Community Advisor in Fund 6 and 7, Veteran Community Advisor in Fund 7, VCA in Flash Assessment in Fund 7, Cardano4Climate, Cardano Creatives, Founder of South Asian Town Hall, Active in Eastern Town Hall, Pacific Town Hall, European Town hall, Catalyst Swarm, Gimbalabs Playground
Serial Entrepreneur, INFJ, Marketer by profession, Creative by passion, Strategist, Writer, Poet, Storyteller Has background in multiple sectors and has run several companies with groundbreaking technologies in Sri Lanka. Having his first job as a department store Santa at age 12, he learnt how bringing joy to kids and the less fortunate would bring unspeakable joy to life. He worked at Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation on various radio channels under the English Service, and learnt the art of communication, presentation, audio and radio production, and program compilation. Working often in highly tense security situations due to the ever present threat of terror attack on the SLBC by the LTTE he learnt to be cool under immense pressure and not let any crisis affect him. He is a Chartered Management Accountant, and Chartered Marketer. He has also completed MBTI and FIRO-B certifications and is currently becoming an ICF accredited Coach and DISC certified trainer and consultant. He has experience in multiple sectors, including Business Development on a national scale for global brands. He has been involved in social service projects for 35 years. He has been distributing food to the hungry several times a week since July 2018. Even during lockdown he was able to get a special pass as he was engaging in essential food distribution services.
Uditha Bandara <https://www.linkedin.com/in/udithabandara/>
Uditha Bandara (MVP) is an expert in specializes in Microsoft , AI and Blockchain Technologies . He is an author in AI technologies, an international speaker and the founder/CEO of Blue Chip Asia and South East Asia`s First XNA/DirectX MVP (Most Valuable Professional)
Rishantha Welikadage <https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/daforce>
RIshantha has been involved in multiple business sectors including State Government in Minnesota USA as a Hardware Technician and Entrepreneur. He has also worked in software development in the logistics industry. Being involved from the inception of a freight logistics company he grew it from 2 employees to over 30 and developed a proprietary system which was better than ready built systems available for a UK logistics and courier company.
He has obtained his MBA in Business Management from Australia and has also been involved in many Social Service organizations such as the Lions Club as well as food distribution on his own.
Chamarie Ranasinghe <https://web.facebook.com/designerchamari>
Chamari Ranasinghe has been involved in multiple entrepreneurial businesses for the last 25 years. She is highly experienced in managing complex projects and has a skill of connecting with all strata of society and can motivate any group of people. She has a down to earth quality about her that serves her well in her social service work which also brings her closer to her passion of helping people. She is also a qualified Ayurvedic Physician.
D M Saman Chandana <https://web.facebook.com/saman.c.dissanayake>
Saman has been working in the areas of technical maintenance and management for over 20 years. His skill sets bring needed planning and operations management to the entire operations of food pickup and distribution. His involvement with various low income and marginalized communities around Colombo help him regularly bring food and other needed resources to these underserved communities
This project needs two Blockchain developers, UI/UX developer, and a Quality assurance Engineer to complete this project, and there is no need to take external developers. We have this team in house.
The type and number of team members required to implement the proposal
Four people to handle Food pickup and Delivery
One Marketing person to onboard new Restaurants and identify Beneficiary locations
One Admin and Accounts Person
One Social Media and Content Creation person
One person to manage Client servicing. This will grow as number of clients grows
[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.
Yes we would in order to build more functionality
[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?
Number of restaurants onboarded. Can be tracked by the NFT having a unique identifier for the restaurant
Number of food packs collected per restaurant per day . Can be tracked by NFTs generated from that unique ID of the restaurant per specific day.
Number of food packs distributed per day - Total number of NFTs distributed
Number of private , household, corporate donors per month - Can be tracked by NFTs and by the App
Number of NFTs generated upon pickup - Tracked via App
Number of NFTs generated on sale - Tracked via app
Number of NFTs sold on the CNFT marketplace - Obtained from stats on the marketplace
Visual Real time auditability for anyone who comes here.
Whether it's me, or a number of people working for me, we will ensure we deliver your excess food without fail to our beneficiary locations. The Restaurateur, Community Member coming here on holiday, stake pool operator or delegator coming here on holiday are welcome to join in at any time with us, to do food runs, to see where we go, how we deliver and possibly the gratitude on people's faces when they receive this food. I am sure you have seen this in the media perhaps but now you have the opportunity to see it happening every day, with food that otherwise you would have to discard. I am sure this is something you would welcome and cherish.
With additional funding we can even livestream the food distribution using head mounted GoPro or other methods such as Mobile phone Live Streaming to Youtube or Facebook
[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?
Getting our operational funding requirements met and ability to extend from one night a week to 7 nights per week.
Ability to increase our beneficiary locations
Ability to increase our donor base of individuals and corporates who turn to us to donate their excess food from parties and functions.
Ability to effectively minimize our costs by means of route planning and optimization.
Ability to minimize time spent on the roads where food is in transit
Greater awareness among the public of the work being done and a month on month increase of donors both individual, household and corporate
Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.
[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.
New project
