Ashok Kumar Rathod

Effective Waste Management and Resource Mobilization

Let’s Feed is a mobile application that advocates the value of social sharing by encouraging the reuse of surplus resources within the local neighborhood and prevent waste generation and is aimed at the effective mobilization of resources. It presents an opportunity for sustainable living by supporting one’s neighborhood communities and charitable organizations through alternative effective uses of surplus food resources. The application has been designed in the format of a social media application, where users can connect with each other and with charities to share food resources in an instantaneous and effective manner. In this way, it bridges the gap between the providers and beneficiaries of resources and promotes their effective utilization. The project aims to explore user-centric design solutions to satisfy the needs of potential users through adept research and testing, in order to develop an application that is fully capable of democratizing access to resources and enriching the quality of life of its users. This project is aimed at leveraging on the waste-generating tendencies of citizens, in form of food waste, while it is still edible, and also clothing waste, while they are still in a usable form, but no longer desirable by the user. These resources will then be mobilized towards charitable bodies and the less fortunate and marginalized groups of the society as well as within the local community. The creation of ‘Let’s Feed’ was supported by razor-sharp insights formulated as a result of in-depth research. The research generated insights in relation to themes such as current waste management practices as well as HCI interventions, behavioral influences and motivations for waste management, involvement and participative collaboration of communities in waste management, shopping patterns and tendencies of over-consumption and the popularity of mobilizing resources towards charitable institutions.