Indian program "One Million Lunches" fights children's hunger with the help of blockchain technology

The world's largest non-profit program for schoolchildren is exploring new technologies, including blockchain , to support and expand its project, whose goal is to put an end to hunger among children.
        
The program called "Akshaya Patra", which translates as "full cup", is engaged in feeding schoolchildren's meals in state and government schools in India, which are usually visited by children from low-income families.   The non-profit foundation appeared in 2000, when it provided meals to 1,500 schoolchildren in 5 schools, now this number is more than 1.6 million children in 11 states of India. The nutrition program also helped increase school attendance.   
 

Recently, the fund disclosed details of cooperation with the consulting company Accenture for bringing to the project the latest progressive technologies - blockchain , Internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence. The technologies were chosen in view of their enormous potential for solving serious problems of mass production of food products and delivery of dishes to more than one million children per day.
 

"We think this is the ideal case for using the combined capacity of AI, IoT and blockchain ," said Accenture Labs Managing Director Sanjay Support.

 
Critical processes have been recognized: measuring the quantity of food and supplies to be procured, monitoring food production, tracking food delivery, and collecting feedback at school.  Using blockchain technology, the project was able to avoid manual collection of feedback from children and schools, thanks to which, with the use of artificial intelligence technology, it became possible to forecast the requirements for food the next day. Using team data collected by mobile devices, the team was also able to track the time taken to deliver food to each school.

IoT sensors were used to monitor and sequence daily cooking processes to check the quality of food and optimally use gas and energy consumption.
Ultimately, the analyst showed that the effectiveness of the project through the introduction of new technologies was increased by 20%, "which ultimately will increase the number of dishes that children will receive."
 Sridhar Venkat, Director General of the Fund Akshayya Patra, emphasized the advantages of introducing new technologies:
 

"This initiative not only increased the efficiency of our operations, but also ensured compliance with quality standards while increasing the number of meals provided. With the help of such technologies, we are striving to expand our opportunities for millions of children. "