Sixty percent of children in Kenya can’t count on three meals a day. For children in underserved communities across Africa, education remains the surest path to a more secure future — and yet hunger inhibits learning and optimal development for a majority of the country’s young people.
It is much harder to learn on an empty stomach, writes Charu Adesnik, executive director of Cisco Foundation and director of social impact investments.
Wawira Njiru, founder and executive director of Food4Education, understood from the start that technology was key to scaling up her operation dramatically enough to meet the daily nutritional needs of hundreds of thousands of young learners. Her organisation created a deeply tech-based solution to help eliminate hunger and ensure that school-going children have access to a healthy meal.
Food4Education’s innovative Tap2Eat system – a smart payment solution – ensures that children in Kenya receive nutritious meals at school. By using a wearable wristband linked to a mobile wallet, children can easily scan, eat, and focus on learning without worrying about hunger.
In 2018, Cisco awarded the Global Citizen Prize for Youth Leadership to Wawira to create and test this technology. At the time, the organisation was feeding 3 000 children a day in Kenya. The funding enabled her organisation to scale up to 10 000 children a day while also developing the Tap2Eat app and platform.
In 2022, we provided a technology grant of Webex, Meraki, and Cisco Umbrella technologies. Our technology enables Food4Education to collect and use data analytics to enhance their operations and offerings, mitigate cyber threats, and securely connect their operations, platform, and program offerings. We also provided a cash grant to enable further development and scaling of their program to support 100 000 children a day.
Today, more than 500 000 children can Tap2Eat lunch at school daily using the Tap2Eat mobile app and wristband. The wristband uses near-field communication (NFC) technology to enable seamless transactions, ensuring students receive meals without the need for cash or physical contact.
The system also verifies meal delivery to children and sends real-time data directly to Food4Education’s operational dashboards. This system ensures accurate tracking of meal quantities and uptake, enabling predictive analytics and more effective meal planning for the future.
Parents, philanthropy and government all contribute to the cost of daily meals – keeping the program steady, scalable, and sustainable.
The effectiveness of the solution is undeniable – and the children are getting nourished in more ways than one. As Wawira puts it: “Every lunchtime, they’ll just go tap. So it gives parents a very high level of visibility, but it also gives children a sense of ownership and a sense of excitement.”
In schools that serve meals through Tap2Eat, truancy is almost zero. Academic performance is improving, and attendance has increased by up to 30% in many areas.
Cisco’s partnership with Food4Education, the innovative use of technology, and a dynamic business strategy based on community-centric solutions to longstanding challenges have helped the program grow and thrive.
Food4Education is a social impact partner that embodies our shared values around basic nutrition and quality education for everyone, while also demonstrating the power of our incubator model for nonprofits. We scout for great ideas and dynamic founders, and then support their early-stage, tech-enabled concepts through implementation, validation, and scaling.