I was listening to the To Cut Food Waste, Spain's Solidarity Fridge Supplies Endless Leftovers segment on NPR today, which made me happy, but then quickly left me sad regarding 99% of the tech solutions I see being developed today. The tech sector loves to showcase how smart we all are, but in the grand scheme of things, we are mostly providing solutions to non-problems, when there is a world full of real problems needing solved.
I remember being at MIT for a hackathon a couple years back, where when we were done with the catered food for our event, the food was taken down to a corner in a hallway, that had a table, and a webcam. After putting the bagels, pizza, juice, and other items on the table, within about 20 minutes, it was gone--students fed, and food not wasted. #winning
The solidarity fridge idea reminded me of this experience, and it makes me sad that there is not an Uber for fucking feeding people! Why the hell isn't there a solidarity fridge and pantry on every street corner in the world? Why don't we have Uber for this idea? Why aren't there food trucks doing this? Oh, because there is no fortune to be made on actually making sure people are being fed, and Silicon Valley really doesn't give a shit about solving real problems, it is just what we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night.
If you are building a platform that helps neighborhoods manage their solidarity fridge and pantries, complete with API, mobile and web apps, and SMS push notifications, then you will see me get real excited about what you are doing--until then...
