#OpenFood Data HackDays
Lausanne Highlights Reel
Last weekend, I attended my first hackathon as a participant and built Yuzou with my team. Here’s a behind the scenes look into #OpenFood Data HackDays, recapping some of my favourite moments of the event.
Friday 10th February, 3°C — Day 1
8:00 am — Cold and still jet lagged (I arrived from Penang on Wednesday), I venture outside to make my way to the Open Food Hackdays taking place at EPFL.
8:15 am — I’m greeted by smiling faces from the Opendata.ch team who help me register, provide me with nametags and explain the format for the day.
8:20 am — I enjoy a croissant and coffee while soaking in the feeling of being a participant at a hackathon for a change. It feels great!
9:00 am — The room is filled with hackers, nutritionists, designers, data experts, economists and more. I recognize some familiar faces from our event in October, FoodHack Geneva and start networking in prep for team forming.
9:30 am — Opening presentations by Oleg Lavrovsky from Opendata.ch and Luc Henry from EPFL who explain the aims, purpose and format of the next two days.
9:45 am — Professor Marcel Salathé presents the Openfood.ch platform and provides more fuel to participants motivation this hackday. Further speakers are invited to present their challenges for the event, among them is Laura Robinson from Foodways presenting My Food Skills a platform that encourages more young people to eat healthy.
10:00 am — Luc opens the stage for any audience members who want to pitch their own ideas. Hands quickly go up from eager participants with big ideas.
10:20 am — Idea pitching is complete, everything from beer mapping at a molecular level to turning your food receipts into actionable data is pitched. We’re encouraged to go find out more about the projects we want to be a part of but I’ve already made up my mind for the one I want to work on.
11:40 am — After some discussions, our team of 9 is formed and we head to a separate room, ready to get started. Our highly interdisciplinary team includes:
- Rafael Ruiz de Castaneda, Isabelle Bolon, Lester Genevieve, Maria Christina Mallet: Public and Global Health, Environmental Health
- Camille Bossel: Arts and Graphic Designer, Marketing
- Sophie Schmidt, Pierre Alexandre Fonta, Gianrocco Lazzari: Computer sciences, Web Development
- Greg Staehli : Marketing, Economy
1:00 pm — We’ve explored several directions to take with our project such as a search engine for healthy foods or a Tripadvisor style platform for local markets, but ultimately we decide on building Yuzo, a participatory platform for travelers looking for authentic food experiences around the world. Think AirBnB experiences.
1:30 pm— After deciding on everyones roles and responsibilities, we put our heads down to build our ideas into reality.
6:45 pm — I present to the team a first mock up of the platform whilst the other guys are cross checking our three open data sources: iNaturalist.org, the Swiss Food Composition Database and the EU Register of Nutrition and Health Claims.
8:00 pm — We grab some more food and drinks to fuel us on for the next couple of hours.
10:00 pm — The second version of the mockup is complete, now with new features:
- Inventory of the biodiversity of an ingredient (i.e. how many different types of banana can be found?)
- Data-backed nutritional facts on fruits and vegetables
- Ability to share photos, recipes and travel stories between travelers
- Ability for travelers to book a tour with a local food market ambassador
10:30 pm — Unable to think clearly anymore, it’s time to call it a night. Though some brave souls choose to tough it out for the night.
Saturday 11th February , 5°C— Day 2
7:30 am — My alarm goes off. I hit snooze. Another minute won’t hurt.
8:20 am — I’m up, this time for real.
8:45 am — I brave the cold again, motivated and ready for another day at the #OpenFood hackdays.
9:00 am — Croissant and coffee in hand, I head into our team meeting where Raphael presents our work for the day.
9:00 am to 1:00 pm — We’re all working hard on completing our prototype and pitch, fully aware of the fast approaching deadline.
1:11 pm — We’re ready.
2:00 to 3:00 pm — Time to rest, eat and kick back with the team.
3:30 pm — Everyone takes their seats in anticipation for pitches.
3:55 pm — Team leader, Raphael gives a strong presentation for our team, Yuzou. Pressure is off, time to discover the other teams projects.
4:20 pm — All team pitches are complete. For the full list of projects presented, view the Opendata Hack platform here.
Luc and Oleg take the stage to close of the event. We’re reminded, “This is only day 2/1000” and our work shouldn’t stop here.
5:00 pm — We take a quick team debrief and discuss next steps. All of us are highly motivated no matter what the result of the hackdays turns out to be. A great end to a productive weekend.
Monday 13th February, 3°C
8:13 am — I get woken up by a message from a friend. Apparently my face is on the front cover of the EPFL website 😏
Thank you to the organizers of Food Open Data HackDays, Florian Wieser, Hannes Gassert & the rest of the Opendata.ch team for the great weekend 👏🏼
Camille Bossel is co-founder and project manager at OneRoof.Agency. A swiss digital branding and communication agency. You can follow her on Twitter, Dribbble, and here on Medium Camille Bossel
Our team was the creative minds behind the visuals for the Open Food Data program, to find out more about the work we did with them, click on the image below:
