KUALA LUMPUR: In an effort to reach out to the poor, four teenagers from East Malaysia have designed the country’s first ever food surplus app called Robin Food.
The creators of the app, Allegra Chan Qin Hur, Ezra Adrian Robert, Ivan Avannus and Joseph Chung, are winners of the Sime Darby Young Innovators Challenge (SDYIC) this year.
Sime Darby today launched the Robin Food app, which will connect supermarkets with surpluses of food to non-governmental organisations and charitable organisations. Thus, instead of throwing away excess food items, the organisations can then distribute the food to the urban poor and the homeless.
The students, aged between 14 to 16 years old, named themselves team Robin Food, submitted a prototype of the app as their entry for the challenge. The app, they said was developed to meet the challenge statement of SDYIC 2016, which is to tackle global poverty issue.
Apart from supermarkets, the Robin Food app will also enable corporations and hotels to contribute excess food to the needy via dedicated food banks. Individual contributions can be made directly to the food banks, all through the app of course.
Robin Food allows corporations with surpluses of food to inform the food banks on the availability of excess food and arrange for collection within minutes.
Tesco Malaysia will be Robin Food’s main contributor while Food Aid Foundation (FAF) will organise the food distribution to other organisations and charities.
Sime Darby Chairman Tan Sri Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman said as a company that is ultimately owned by Malaysians, Sime Darby is also obliged to contribute towards the nation building agenda.
“The country has identified innovation as a key enabler for economic growth and we do recognise the challenge faced by the public sector to educate our children.
“We believe that the private sector has a lot to offer in human capital development and Sime Darby is proud to support this noble initiative. Hopefully, the app will be able to minimise food wastage, so that food items can be channelled to the charitable organisations to feed the hungry and homeless,” he added.
Also present at the launch were Sime Darby President and Group Chief Executive Tan Sri Datuk Seri Mohd Bakke Salleh, Tengku Zatashah Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, Yayasan Sime Darby governing council members, representatives from Tesco Malaysia, Food Aid Foundation and Kechara Soup Kitchen Society.