The pioneering food recovery tech organization will join a global cohort of nonprofits leveraging AI to solve the world’s pressing challenges.
Tech to the Rescue, an international nonprofit foundation that aims to connect ambitious non-profits and social impact organizations with technology companies, has announced that it has selected 412 Food Rescue’s Food Rescue Hero for its AI for Changemakers program, a flagship 3-year initiative dedicated to bridging the gap between the tech and nonprofit worlds as it empowers ambitious organizations to leverage AI for good.
Driven by the belief that good food belongs to people, not landfills, 412 Food Rescue launched Food Rescue Hero, an integrated tech platform, in 2016 that enables organizations to launch and scale food recovery. Now licensed for use at 18 food rescue organizations serving 52 counties in North America, the Food Rescue Hero platform coordinates 54,000 volunteer drivers, who have diverted over 170 million pounds of food and mitigated over 390 million pounds of CO2 emissions.
As it works to grow this impact in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2, 12 and 13, Food Rescue Hero plans to use its time in the AI for Changemakers program to refine its climate impact tracking. The focus will be on applying AI vision models to automate each Food Rescue Hero volunteer’s identification and classification of weight by food type at the point of pickup, in order to more accurately measure the emissions mitigated by each rescue. This enhanced donation transparency will help food donors and food recovery organizations alike focus their efforts to ensure maximum impact on both food insecurity and climate change.
“We’re thrilled to be selected for the AI for Changemakers Accelerator program,” says 412 Food Rescue CEO Alyssa Cholodofsky. “At Food Rescue Hero we are always looking ahead to understand how we can increase impact for all our partners. We look forward to collaborating with experts from around the world as we work to tackle some of our biggest climate challenges. ”
“I believe that the AI for Changemakers Accelerator will be the origin of groundbreaking AI solutions for world-changing nonprofit organizations like Food Rescue Hero. The power of AI is huge, but with high demand for AI talent, nonprofit changemakers are too often forgotten about. This is why we built a platform to offer skills, knowledge and cross-sector support from AI innovators, tech companies and software digital agencies to contribute to social impact,” says Jacek Siadkowski, CEO and Co-Founder of Tech To The Rescue.
