PhoenixDX met Zer0hunger during a global OutSystems Hackathon in February 2021. As part of their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, they dedicate a percentage of time, human potential and profits to causes that they believe will make a difference to local and global communities.
PhoenixDX believed in the Zer0hunger project and knew their team could help them. They built a groundbreaking custom build application that can eradicate hunger in Malaysia and hopefully further afield.
Zer0hunger is a non-profit organisation founded in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the pandemic started and Malaysia had their first lockdown, two of Zer0hunger’s founders decided to send meals to 3000 students who were stranded. They mobilised at one university and were amazed by how difficult it was to help these students. People were screaming that we needed a system to streamline the process, and they thought that all of the NGOs could benefit from a platform.
Zer0hunger was created to systematically address hunger in Malaysia through a platform that could connect people in need with donors and NGOs.
“We could see that NGOs were working off Google Sheets and Google Forms which meant that many people were touching fields, data and databases. Sometimes 20 or more people. This increased human error and made it difficult to verify information.
We tried to build our own solution using a few freemium platforms, but it wasn’t sophisticated or nimble enough. We realised that we had to build a customised application, but we didn’t have the resources. We reached out to our local developer companies, but they did not share our passion.
While we were going through this process, we came across OutSystems. They got in touch to ask if we would like to be considered for a hackathon. I was like, yes, let’s do it.” - Sharizal Shaarani, Director and Co-Founder of Zer0hunger.
The hackathon connected Zerohunger with OutSystems partners from around the world, and PhoenixDX created the best prototype out of all of the competitors… and won the hackathon. After the hackathon was over, Pedro Carrilho, PhoenixDX managing director, reached out to Sharizal and offered to keep working on the prototype.
On Malaysia Day 2021, 16th September, Zer0hunger launched its mobile app. We continue to work with Zer0hunger to develop the platform and their application further to fulfil their dream of ending hunger in Malaysia.
To find out more about the PhoenixDX project, watch this video:
