In cooperation with the Israel Collect Association: Last week, a Datathon was held at the Technion - a data-based development competition - which focuses on reducing food waste in Israel and around the world
Last week, the Technion held a Datathon - a data-based development competition - which focuses on reducing food waste in Israel and around the world. About 70 students from the Technion developed solutions in this field in three busy and sleepless days.
The Datathon was organized by the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion, the Social Incubator at the Technion, "Data for Good" and the association "Collect Israel", together with the European initiative EIT FOOD, Consumer Trust Grand Challenge with the support of Tech.AI - the Center for Artificial Intelligence at the Technion.
The participants, all undergraduate students in the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion, were required to develop computational methods to predict the amount of available harvest that would be made available to "Collect Israel" at any given time in any region of the country. These systems will allow the association to prepare in advance and collect the agricultural produce in the most efficient manner, to reduce food waste in Israel, and to increase the food donations received by various associations throughout the country.
The competition is designed to expose the students to social action, allow them to develop new technologies and raise awareness of two central issues
• Reducing food waste (currently about a third of the food produced in Israel is thrown away).
• Reducing social gaps (transferring an abundance of unnecessary groceries to needy populations).
The event was opened by Prof. Avigdor Gal, one of the initiators of the data science curriculum at the Technion, one of the pioneering programs in the world. According to him, "The event is part of the faculty's annual extra-curricular activities designed to generate social and ethical awareness among students, with the understanding that their professional occupation in the future will require access to data that expresses social issues (for example, social media content, health data, etc.)."
During the datathon, the students were exposed to relevant lectures by the VP of Leket Israel Anat Friedman Coles, the coordinator of the social incubator Ronit Piso, the founder of Data for Good Israel Jeremy Atia, and Prof. Liat Labontin.
Gathering for judging: VP of Marketing for Leket Israel Anat Friedman-Kolls, VP of Operations for Leket Israel Irit Davidovich, coordinator of the Social Incubator at the Technion Ronit Piso and Dean of the Faculty Prof. Ran Samrodinsky.
"We are happy to cooperate with the Technion in a datathon that focuses on reducing food waste in Israel and around the world," said Gidi Karuch, CEO of Leket Israel. "The Leket Israel organization has been involved for 20 years in rescuing food and delivering it to those who need it. The organization works tirelessly in search of innovative technological solutions that will help expand its activities in the field of food rescue and optimize its work in order to deliver more quality and nutritious food to those in need."
According to Prof. Liat Labontin from the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, "The Datathon is designed to improve the food supply chain of 'Collect Israel' while analyzing the association's collection and distribution data. Students from the data and information engineering and information systems engineering track at the faculty proposed technological solutions that would lead to the reduction of food waste and the improvement of consumer confidence in the supply chain. As part of a large study by EIT FOOD, we found that consumer trust in the food supply chain has great implications, for example on healthy eating, and we believe that the datathon will advance this goal."
The ranking of the winners was based on the level of understanding and analysis of the information and its limitations, while utilizing the knowledge that the students acquired during the degree. First place was won by the students Omri Shmoeli (faculty excellence program), Omer Tsitselsky (Alonim reserve program, which allows participants to complete a bachelor's and master's degree including a thesis in data and information engineering), Oren Schwartz, Oren Luria and Ben Van Oost, all students in the data and information engineering program. Second place went to Idan Pograbinski, Kafir Hadar, Daniel Silver and Daniel Angel, all in the Elonim reserve program. Third place went to Chaya Nakhimovski, Inbar Nachmani and Gal Tzur (all three from the Alonim program), Yuval Schreiber, Yordan Kamini, Or Biton (faculty excellence program), Gilad El-Dor, Tal Parr and Uriah Assolin.
According to Gila Molcho, director of academic projects and coordinator of excellence programs at the faculty, "Beyond winning, the way the students did it is also important - a way in which they gained experience in understanding data and extracting insights from data under time pressure, as well as a sense of personal empowerment and satisfaction from doing good. It is also important to emphasize that the efforts did not end at the end of the datathon - the students will continue to develop management tools for Collect Israel as part of an annual project."
Leket Israel is the national food bank and the only organization in Israel that was involved in saving food. The organization deals with the collection and harvesting of surplus agricultural produce and the collection of cooked meals, sorting them and distributing them through associations for the benefit of hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries throughout the country. There is also a control over the quality of the shaded food while making sure that it has a high nutritional value and that it is kept in optimal conditions.
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