New Platform Could Help Local Food Banks Manage Stock and Resources
SAINT JOHN – A researcher at UNB plans to help change the way food banks manage their resources as well as gain some much-needed insight into some of the province’s most vulnerable communities.
Milad Pirayegar and his team plan to build a platform that will collect food bank data and also enable food banks to better manage their resources. This will, in turn, help them enhance services for the community. The project is being funded with the help of a $25,000 prize from Enterprise Saint John’s Innovation Challenge.
Pirayegar is a PhD. candidate in Interdisciplinary Studies and research assistant at the Urban and Community Studies Institute at the University of New Brunswick. He’s originally from Iran where he served as the director of technology at the Marlik Institute of Innovation and Technology in Iran. It was here where he discovered his passion for using technology to tackle social issues.
“When I came here, I realized that I didn’t know anything about the nature of the economy in Canada,” says Pirayegar. “Then I came to Saint John and realized that there is really a big issue, which is generational poverty. I didn’t expect this issue in a developed country.”
So when it came to choosing his thesis topic, he tried to find a way to use the trendy and timely “smart cities” concept, and find a way to use that to solve a prevalent social problem.
“Because usually when people take about the smart cities, they would like to focus on some communities with a stable economy and also stable conditions in every dimension,” says Pirayegar. “But here, I wanted to focus on the smart city in a different way.”
The platform for food banks, which is currently in the early stages of development, will allow the organizations to better keep track of their stock and what they need so they can communicate that to their community donors and partners.
“It’s important for food banks to be aware and keep them updated on demands and needs of their storage and also their target groups and the donated food. It is really important to make these kinds of connections,” says Pirayegar. “If we could make these kinds of connections and if it could make connections between food banks and big donors like Superstore or Wal-Mart, they can rely on their inventory system more than before by using this platform.”
But there’s another mission behind this platform, which is to collect data to get real-time insights about low-income families in the community. Pirayegar says getting up-to-date and relevant data about the causes of poverty in Saint John is a challenge he’s experienced first-hand.
“I realized that the first step for me was to identify the root reasons and causes of poverty in Saint John. When I tried to study previous poverty reduction projects I realized there isn’t any reliable source that mentions the root causes and reasons of poverty,” he says. “Several studies and projects have been done in the province on the provincial level and national level, but none of them mentions the reasons of poverty in the city of Saint John.”
In order to get real-time insights into poverty and its causes, Pirayegar and his advisors knew you need to go to where many of those people are, which makes a food bank management system a unique opportunity.
“We need to invite them to share their data with us. We realized that food banks are the most accessible places to have access to our target groups,” he says.
They are currently working on phase one of the project, which is a basic management platform for food banks. This is expected to be completed early next year and will be piloted at the Saint John Community Food Basket in the city’s uptown.
“At this time, it’s not a comprehensive platform for everyone. It is a basic data collection and data management platform for food banks” says Pirayegar. “Food bank managers, volunteers and employees can register their visitors who are our target groups in that platform. Ultimately, policy makers, key stakeholders, and academics can use the beneficial aspects of this database”
For food bank users who wish to share their information, it can help food banks get valuable insights about their users and what they need, not just when it comes to food, but other services as well.
“If they could share their information and if we could track their visit, it could be great for both sides,” says Pirayegar. “For the food bank managers and for food banks to make a reliable connection between donors, volunteers and target groups. And also for target groups to have access to some potential solutions and recommendations.”
The second and third phase includes developing a comprehensive social network that connects volunteers, donors with organizations and people in need and also making the food bank system more advanced so they will be able to do things such as create custom healthy food baskets for visitors based on their medical and health needs, et cetera. This is expected to be completed by mid-next year.
“It is really important to make the connection between three different groups, low-income families and individuals, food banks and other sources, and the third group which can be donors, volunteers, governments, anyone who wants to help the first group.”
If the pilot at the Saint John Community Food Basket is successful, Pirayegar says the platform could be exported to other communities. Though there is a strong business case for it, for him, that’s not what it’s about.
“It’s not just about the business, it’s about our community because the ultimate goal is not just inviting everyone to register on this platform,” he says. “It is about the quality of life by solving the poverty issues and focusing on poverty reduction projects, we can increase the quality of life in our community.”