Food for Thought / Illiteracy (concept)

Over 22 million children reside in the slums of India, with the entire slum population expected to reach 104 million by 2017. The cycle of forced child labour and poverty, perpetuated by under education of these children, has given rise to the notion of basic survival taking precedence over the need to develop and study to build a better life. To combat this issue, we propose an interactive vending machine that skypes classes from around the world to slums and tests children’s knowledge to earn meals. This innovation incentivizes learning of other cultures and skills that have the propensity to affect meaningful change in slum communities.