Helena is part of the winning team at the Lufbra Global Service Design Jam 19/03/2013

On the first weekend of March 2013 the third Global Service Jam took place in 120 cities around the world. Almost 3,000 people, or jammers, produced over 500 projects during the 48-hour service design challenge. UCHD’s Helena Sustar was part of the event held at Loughborough University where more than 40 jammers formed 7 teams to do some hands-on service design.

Helena joined a team of two product designers from industry, a sustainable materials PhD student, a product design student and a graphic design student. The group was mentored by Luke Forsythe an interaction designer from Fjord, London. The team designed a service that allows people to use geo-tagging to map locally grown food. Using ‘Eat Me!’, ‘Food Explorers’ can share the location of freely available food such as blackberries in a hedgerow, mushrooms in a wood or produce in local markets. ‘Food Growers’ who are growing their own food in gardens or allotments can use the system to share excess fruit, veg and plants.

The service can bring the ‘Explorers’ and ‘Growers’ together virtually, using a mobile app or website, or physically through monthly market meetings.  At the market ‘Eat me!’ members can share knowledge, products and recipes, as well as pick up a start-up box with seeds, instructions, recipes, plant markers and stickers. The service aims to reduce food waste, bring together communities and share passion for the great outdoors.

The simplicity of the idea behind ‘Eat Me!’ convinced the judges to award the team first prize of a hands-on workshop at the Glendonbrook Centre for Enterprise Education. See the ‘Eat ME!’ presentation here.