Ahead of World Food Day, South Africa’s hunger crisis just met its next wave of disruption: 60 of the country’s smartest Gen Z innovators spent a week hacking one of the nation’s toughest problems – child hunger – and emerged with breakthrough, tech-powered ideas that could change how food insecurity is tackled.
Artificial intelligence, blockchain, data visualisation, and community-driven platforms were among the technologies harnessed during The Biggest Hunger Hack – a challenge hosted by KFC Africa. The event invited young digital natives to re-engineer the brand’s Add Hope open-source blueprint.
Add Hope, powered by millions of R2 donations from KFC customers, already fuels 3 300+ feeding centres across the country and reaching over 154 000 children last year. But Gen Z just showed how the recipe can get a digital boost. Potential seed funding of up to R1-million could be allocated to the development of the winning solution.
Stand-out solutions
The overall winning team, Ctrl-Alt-Del-Hunger, turned South Africa’s food waste crisis into a social impact opportunity. Their Misfits Mzansi app rescues “ugly” fruit and veg that would normally be trashed on farms and delivers it to food-insecure families.
The platform also hosts short-form cooking challenges, edutainment content, and ad-driven donations so users literally feed families by engaging with content. “You become a philanthropist just by watching a video,” says the team.
Streetwise scripters built a social-media-first donation ecosystem. Their concept includes a realtime donor dashboard, donation hotspot map, and a KFC loyalty rewards integration where good deeds unlock free meals. Plus, they proposed @KFCAddHopeSA, a TikTok-to-Till campaign for digital storytelling that keeps donors looped in.
Bit Coders’ chatbot ecosystem makes donations inclusive and transparent – even for non-KFC customers. It features AI-driven donor insights, rewards, and tax certification downloads for big donations using the MTN MoMo API for seamless payments.
Hack 4 Hope’s solution showcased a WhatsApp chatbot that allows customers to scan a QR code from their KFC till slip to instantly donate. Built on blockchain, the system provides proof of every R2’s journey – from donor to meal served – creating full transparency and reinforcing trust. The platform’s “HopeCoins’ reward repeat donors and gamify giving.
“The Biggest Hunger Hack showed what happens when young digital natives use tech for good,” says Andra Nel, KFC Africa’s head of Brand Purpose and ESG. “They understand hunger because many have lived it and they understand technology because they were born into it. That’s the sweet spot for innovation with purpose.”
Nel says the next step is to co-develop pilot programmes with Add Hope partners aiming to showcase results by the time the National Convention on Child Hunger convenes early next year.