ASU team FlashFood is developing a mobile-phone application to help establish networks that would connect restaurants, hotels, catering and banquet services with teams of people who would collect leftover food and transport it to community centers, churches, and other neighborhood gathering places where it would be distributed to people in need.
The app is designed to send out a text message to subscribers to the service in local communities to inform them where and when food will be delivered. “This is a huge component of our service that makes us stand out from similar types of services,” says team member Jake Irvin, a recent marketing and sustainability graduate.
The FlashFood idea brought the team a first-place finish last spring at the MicroSoft Imagine Cup U.S. Finals and earned them a spot in the Imagine Cup World Finals.