Last week we were invited over to Olio’s ‘making shit better’ pop-up tech event about people/companies/projects that are making the world better in any way possible.

Making shit better was about anything from solving environmental problems, improving education, or making writing software better for developers.

A few of us are Olio members and even with that it was still unbelievable to hear about how much food goes to waste and the impact it has having. Highly recommend downloading the app if you haven’t already, it’s really easy to use and sharing’s caring!

1. Over 1/3 of all food produced globally goes to waste.
2. The annual value of food wasted globally is $1 trillion, and it weighs 1.3 billion tonnes.
3. All the world’s nearly one billion hungry people could be fed on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe.
4. An area larger than China is used to grow food that is never eaten.
5. 25% of the world’s fresh water supply is used to grow food that is never eaten.
6. If food waste were a country it would be the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases (after China & the USA).
7. In most developed countries, over half of all food waste takes place in the home.
8. Meanwhile, food waste at the retail store level is less than 2% of total food waste (though supermarket practices are directly responsible for much food waste elsewhere in the supply chain.)
9. In the home food waste is worth £800 per year to the average UK family ($2,275 in the USA), which collectively adds up to £15 billion per year.
10. 2.3 billion people are joining the planet by 2050 – this will require a 60-70% increase in global food production. Or we can just stop throwing away our food!

We heard from:

TANIA PAPAZAFEIROPOULOU – HOW WE’RE USING REACT NATIVE TO HELP SAVE THE WORLD!

Food waste is one of the biggest environmental and social challenges facing the planet. OLIO helps people connect and share surplus food. And it’s built in React Native! Tania spoke about everything React Native and how much she loves working remotely. She answered a lot of questions around the technology Olio are using to build and scale as they reach now a lot of different countries. Both Tania and Lloyd also spoke about how they translated the languages of the app to fit their growing audience and members across the globe!

TOM MAKIN – ADVICEAID : HELPING TO PREVENT HOMELESSNESS – ONE COMMIT AT A TIME

AdviceAid is a web based service which makes it easy and affordable for councils to give the right advice to people who are in the s**t and are at risk of becoming homeless. This talk aims to give an intro to the AdviceAid project and share some of the insights learned along the way. Tom is working on this with his business partner, as a side project and is currently working with 8 different councils to help prevent homelessness across the UK.

And

BRUCE HUGHES – BIG WORLD, SMALL COMPANY: A GUIDE FOR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN TECH STARTUPS

Bruce is a QA at Fresh8 Gaming and an active member of the testing and LGBT+ communities in Bristol. Their job is testing products, but what he actually does is test people. She is never (read: constantly) afraid to talk about problems at all levels of the business, and has used this superpower to help Fresh8 make their work environment more inclusive.

Then us:

We spoke about how we are working on promoting diversity and inclusion within technology in the South West and our mission to make Bristol the most diverse city in tech in the UK by 2025.

In short it was a night to bring people together to discuss what we could all do to Make Shit Better!

a voice of diversity in tech.

@womenrockbristol