VIJAYAWADA: Though they are busy cracking their brains over computer coding inside their classrooms, once outside, they follow the basic principle of feeding the hungry. Meet the engineering students-turned-food conservationists—TVSL Naga Jyothi, T Pravallika, MC Lakshmi Lahari and K Durga Sandhya—who have developed an app, Food Shift, to distribute leftovers among the needy so that they don’t go into the trash.
The team of four second-year students at Narayana Engineering College in Nellore said that the words of former Senegalese diplomat and the Director-General of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Jacques Diouf, “Hunger is not an issue of charity, but an issue of justice,” inspired them to come up with this noble idea.
The app, which is available on Google Play Store, aims at curbing the wastage of food. Speaking to TNIE, one of the app designers, T Pravallika, said, “Our motto behind creating this app is to donate excess food to the needy. It is very useful when it comes to collecting leftovers from people during any function and distributing the same among the poor.”The team is guided by the HOD of the computer science engineering department Dr C Rajendra along with a software company named Indian Servers.
The app has evoked a good response among denizens of Nellore. Many of them have come forward either as donors or volunteers. Elaborating on the usage of the app, 19-year-old TVSL Naga Jyothi said, “The users need to confirm whether they have excess food and accordingly they have to fill in the details of the location. They can choose to be either a donor or a volunteer. Once all the credentials are uploaded, the volunteer will come to their location to collect the food.”
However, the app is currently operational only in Nellore. “It’s been a month ever since the app has been launched. Though we have limited ourselves to the district right now, we are planning to make it available across the State once we get a more overwhelming response from the public,” stated another student MC Lakshmi Lahari. Meanwhile, the founder of a non-profit organisation Hunger Helpers, MT Nirmal Kumar, called for more such apps that help in mitigating hunger in society.
“Around one-third of the food produced is never eaten, even as 10 per cent of the world population faces hunger every day. Many people are dying of hunger on a daily basis. We should encourage apps like Food Shift by using it to donate food to the poor and encourage the developers to invent more apps for public needs,” he added.