RMIT student takes on world hunger with mobile app

An RMIT graduate has developed an iOS app that allows users to contribute to alleviating world hunger through answering trivia questions.

James Downing developed the Pocket Rice mobile app as part of his final-year project for his Master of Business Information Technology degree.

The free app will donate 15 real grains of rice to hungry people across the world for every trivia question answered correctly. The rice is paid for through revenue generated via Apple’s iAd network.

The app has so far been downloaded more than 19,000 times and raised enough funds to donate over 1 million grains of rice to hungry people in Northern India.

Downing said the design of the app was based on his research into the link between gamification and charitable causes.

“I was inspired by the way technology is changing the world around us and how mobile devices have elevated our ability to solve a lot of large-scale problems which we previously thought were impossible to overcome,” he said.

“Pocket Rice has excellent pick-up because it’s a win-win for the user and the need to solve world hunger.”

Sydney-based enterprise software company Tigerspike has also been using mobile technology to tackle world hunger. The company recently announced it has developed a prototype mobile framework to improve the food distribution processes for the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP).

Pictured: James Downing