The Story of Foodwizer
WaiACCELERATE participant/founder: Betty van Dongen
Between our busy lives, decreasing quality of food, and lack of education and awareness about what we are eating, it can be really challenging to get all of the nutrients that our bodies need to function at optimal health. Chronic disease prevalence is rising at startling rates — already affecting over a third of the global population, the World Health Organization expects these numbers to rise by 57% in 2020. In addition, we are facing an ongoing global pandemic, making maintaining health through nutrition an increasingly critical issue.
As consumers, we have come to expect a personalized experience delivered directly to our smartphones — to get the information that we need, right when we need it. And when it comes to our health, wellness and diet, it is no different. Foodwizer, the mobile app being developed by Betty van Dongen, acts as a personal nutritionist right in your pocket, helping you make the right food decisions in real-time.
With the ability to configure your personal nutrient needs, Foodwizer’s smart AI suggests easy-to-prepare meals and creates a personalized shopping list. It will also complete your shopping basket with items with the missing nutrients, by analyzing a picture of the products you already have on hand. So next time you’re rushing through the grocery store, on your way home from work or before picking up your kids, you know exactly what to add to your shopping basket to help you prepare delicious, fresh and healthy meals that will give you all the nutrients you need to thrive. Increasingly, we know that everybody is so different — and Foodwizer’s AI breaks the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to diet.
Betty started really paying attention to what she was eating about 12 years ago when she was confronted with chronic health issues. She found it extremely challenging to find the right information about her specific condition, taking into account her health and lifestyle considerations. Foodwizer is the app that she wishes she had when she was starting out on her journey. There is so much information online, and an incredible amount of health data available; however, without personalized recommendations, this data is not being used in meaningful ways, and the amount of information is overwhelming.
Betty is an accomplished software developer with over 14 years of experience developing technology solutions to solve real-world problems. In addition, she holds a degree in Orthomolecular Medicine and Nutrition, and is currently completing her Masters in Human Language Technology — where she is focusing on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques.
Foodwizer’s goal is to educate, inspire, and provide tailored recommendations when you need them the most. Foodwizer is set apart from traditional nutrition apps, as the incumbent apps on the market focus on tracking what we eat and relying on use to manually input our meal plans. Nutritionists and dieticians would be the next best thing — although these services are inaccessible for the majority of the world’s population. Foodwizer’s AI-powered app puts this personalized nutritional knowledge directly in your hands and makes optimal health achievable. Amid a global pandemic, and multiple epidemics of heart disease, diabetes, chronic inflammation and food allergies, it is critical that we wise up about what we eat.
Learn more about Foodwizer here, and connect with Betty on LinkedIn.
If you are an investor interested in Betty’s Foodwizer, please contact Eve Logunova at eve@womeninai.co
