Fighting Hunger with Digital Innovations

Sweta Banerjee, Tawanda Mthintwa Hove, Markus Matiaschek Believe it
or not, for the first time in human history the eradication of
hunger is within our grasp. Even though, statistically speaking,
every 9th person on earth still goes to bed hungry. That
means 815 million people suffer from hunger worldwide.
Welthungerhilfe, one of the largest private aid organisations in
Germany, has adopted UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 and
aims to eradicate hunger wherever the organization works by 2030
(#ZeroHunger). In 2016, the organisation reached around 8.4 million
people in 39 countries. However, to speed up progress to
#Zerohunger and ensure the goal is actually reached, new
approaches must be developed. Welthungerhilfe has been
successfully testing the use of digital innovations for years. We
show two promising examples that have recently been developed in an
internal innovation camp and which are currently being tested in a
pilot phase for their scaling potential. The Child Growth Monitor
is an app that uses augmented reality to detect malnutrition in
children. A 3D scan records height and weight to immediately
determine if the child is malnourished. Machine learning improves
results over time. Digital data collection saves time and money and
shows immediately where action is required. Initial trials of the
app were conducted in India in March, where malnutrition is
widespread among children. The smartphone app AgriShare is intended
to connect smallholder farmers with each other to enable
collaboration based on the principle of the sharing economy. The
project, which is to enter the pilot phase in Zimbabwe, has already
won an award at the WFP Innovation Pitch Night.  We present
the digital innovations and want to report on the experiences and
opportunities and discuss the limits and risks with you.