Innovation thrives in environments that challenge us to think differently, work collaboratively and tackle real-world problems. From October 4 to 6, Hack the Valley (HTV), a student led hackathon, brought together brilliant minds for a weekend focused on problem solving through transformative and innovative ideas under intense deadlines. The event’ s attendees included over 400 students from institutions across Canada, who were all united by their love of innovation and technology.  

Among the participants were University of Toronto undergraduate students Isaac Picov, Peter Yoo, Jason Qian and Christian Rogers, who teamed up to develop a project that secured their win for the SDGs@UofT's challenge statement: How can we improve food security for marginalized communities through equitable sustainable practices? 

Their winning project, REFRIDGE, is an AI-powered food manager and recipe recommender designed to help users track the contents of their fridges and discover recipes using leftover ingredients. By scanning their fridges with their phones, users add to a personalized database—the “Refrigerator”—that enables them to manage their food efficiently. REFRIDGE offers a novel approach to tackling food waste and streamlining the process of meal preparation.  

The inspiration behind REFRIDGE stemmed from a relatable issue: “I had this problem where I would buy groceries, and a lot would end up expiring and not getting eaten. A lot of people experienced the same problem, and after doing some market research, I learnt that a significant amount of food goes to waste in Canada,” said Isaac Pivoc. “We wanted to do something that could help counteract this problem.”  

The team realized that they were not alone in their struggles with food waste management. Overfilled grocery carts often lead to forgotten or spoiled items, which is most likely because people are unsure of what they can create using so little. REFRIDGE combats this by ensuring that users can make the most of their ingredients and promote sustainability in the kitchen.  

The idea generation, however, was just the beginning. The team quickly realized that they had a long way to go to bring their idea to life. “We had to learn new coding languages, and our first time importing API was truly a learning curve,” said Peter Yoo. “It felt like we were short on time as we had a midterm to prepare for that happened right in the middle of the Hackathon.” 

In an era of cutting-edge technological advancement, the journey of innovation demands determination and perseverance, which are principles that SDGs@UofT seeks to strengthen in our students. The REFRIDGE team embraced these principles as they navigated challenges like learning new coding languages, overcoming front-end development struggles, and coordinating tasks effectively under tight deadlines. As they shared, "Focusing on the process and having fun is more important than the results." 

Looking ahead, the team envisions expanding REFRIDGE beyond academia to facilitate a real-world impact. By integrating with apps like MyFitnessPal or enhancing automation with AI, the app could revolutionize how we tackle food waste. The team’s vision is to turn REFRIDGE into a fully-fledged tool that supports sustainability with everyday use.  

The journey of the REFRIDGE team underscored the importance of trial and error, teamwork, and the ability to hold steady in the "problem space" before jumping to solutions. Their story was a testament to the role of hackathons in fostering creativity, building communities, and preparing students for the challenges of tomorrow. 

Our Student Advisory Committee played a pivotal role in shaping the problem statement for this year’s hackathon, with members like Noah Khan and Arjun Yanglem contributing their expertise on relevant topics in AI by leading a workshop hosted by Hack the Valley. By engaging trainees in meaningful ways, SDGs@UofT aims to inspire the next generation to transform bold ideas into provoking realities.  

As we look toward the new year ahead, SDGs@UofT remains committed to empowering youth to drive innovation and tackle pressing global challenges. This aligns closely with SDG 8, which emphasizes youth employment and fostering innovation to develop sustainable solutions.  

In a world full of possibilities, young innovators have the potential to drive meaningful change. By equipping youth with the tools and opportunities to think critically and create boldly, we can pave the way for a more sustainable future for all and advance the SDGs. 

Follow the team to learn more about their journey: 

Peter Yoo

Isaac Picov

Jason Qian

Christian Rogers

Mara Uzomah is dedicated to contributing to impactful research and administrative efforts that support global sustainability goals. As an HBSc student pursuing a specialist degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and a minor degree in Linguistics, she brings a health and wellness oriented approach to advancing sustainable development. Currently serving as an Administration and Research Assistant at SDGs@UofT, Mara plays a key role in advancing initiatives related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Mara's prior experience working alongside healthcare professionals and patients as an Assistant Physician at North York Family Physicians After Hours Clinic equip her with the interpersonal, strategic, and management skills for being sucessful at SDGs@UofT. She brings a well-rounded skill set in organization, communication, and team collaboration, and is committed to expanding her expertise in sustainable development and research. Mara plans to continue exploring opportunities that align with her passion for bettering vulnerable communities and sustainable healthcare.

Angeline Elsted is an up and coming marketer. As a BBA candidate pursuing a specialist degree in Marketing with a minor in Economics, she has spent recent years pursuing her passion in marketing and project management roles. With her very first marketing role as a Marketing Associate in the Association of Accountancy (AOA), Angeline further climbed the ladder, becoming a Digital Media Director, and eventually the Vice President of Public Relations. As an active member in the community, she is always looking for new opportunities for her to diversify her experiences. Having had a few internship experiences, Angeline worked as a Digital Marketing Assistant with the University of Toronto Scarborough, where she was able to efficiently promote and boost student morale with the university name. She also had the opportunity to intern as a Marketing Co-op at Sanofi in the vaccine department, where she was able to expand her project management skill set to help the team in managing assets going out on a daily basis. Overall, these experiences allowed her to demonstrate her creativity and analytical skills and learn what goes on behind the scenes in the world of marketing.

Access to adequate and affordable food to support health and well-being is a fundamental human right. The need to accelerate progress in universal realization of this right is restated in the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #2: End malnutrition, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Yet as the 2030 endline for the SDGs approaches, more than a quarter of the world’s population remains food insecure. The reasons for this stem from our collective failure on tackling other SDGs. For a start, food security cannot be assured without ending poverty (SDG-1) and improving gender equality (SDG-5). 

Food insecurity is defined as a lack of access to an adequate quantity and quality of food due to resource constraints, or poverty. Persistent gender inequalities place women at disproportionate risk. Despite their crucial role in food production, women have lower access to land, agricultural inputs and decision-making power than men, and are more likely to have lower paid and precarious employment (SDG-8). Women also shoulder significant unpaid care responsibilities, and are often last in line for household food resources. The implications of gender inequalities were made stark by the COVID-19 pandemic, when women’s job losses were significantly higher than men’s, care burdens increased and the global gender gap in food insecurity widened to more than 4 percentage points.

The perinatal period is a particularly vulnerable time. Nutritional requirements and care responsibilities increase during pregnancy and lactation, but access to income decreases. Millions of women around the world rely on informal employment with precarious working conditions and no provision for leave. Here in Canada, federal maternity and parental leave income supports operate through an insurance model, with eligibility and benefits based on prior employment. This income support structure makes paid maternity leave unavailable or unaffordable to women with lower incomes, precarious work or who are lone parents. Perinatal food insecurity is prevalent among marginalized families in Canada and around the world. This compromises health and well-being (SDG-3) at a critical stage of the life course, and perpetuates social inequalities (SDG-10). 

Compounding these chronic drivers of global food insecurity, conflict (SDG-16) and climate change (SDG-13) disrupt food production systems and cause people to be displaced from their communities and to threaten livelihoods. These crises increase poverty and food insecurity, again with gender inequalities placing women at disproportionate risk. The ripple effects of these shocks can extend regionally and globally, as with the devastating impact of the conflict in Ukraine on global wheat and energy prices.

Structures, systems, policies and social norms hold the power to perpetuate or alleviate food insecurity at all levels from local to global. The SDGs provide multiple avenues for positive and equitable change. They also represent the interconnected pathways to human and planetary well-being, starting with attainment of the most basic of human rights: sufficient safe and nutritious food.

Fifteen years ago, my colleague, Michelle Maroto, and I embarked on a project to better understand the employment experiences of people with disabilities. Many papers later, we decided to undertake a large-scale field experiment studying disability and discrimination in Canada.  The COVID-19 pandemic temporarily put a stop to much of our experiment. We were sending fictional resumes to real job vacancies, and we had to pause this work when the pandemic altered the reality of work for everybody. We focused our attention instead on the socioeconomic experiences of people with disabilities during the pandemic.

COVID-19 had the greatest impact on the most vulnerable in our society and served as a reminder of the interconnected nature of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Vulnerable groups, including older adults, marginalized communities and people with disabilities were amongst those most impacted by the pandemic. To prioritize the well-being of these groups, we must eliminate any biases in the labor market ultimately aiming to reduce inequalities and eliminating barriers to employment for those with disabilities.

In our work, we often encounter the adage “last hired, first fired” which means that people with disabilities are the first to be let go during a major crisis or shock, and last to re-enter the labour market.

Earlier this year, we published a study in the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation focusing on job displacement rates among people with disabilities over a 14-year period which included the 2008 Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps not surprisingly, we found that people with disabilities were more likely to experience job displacement (i.e., involuntarily job loss, due to, for example, a plant closing, or a shift being abolished) compared to those without disabilities. Interestingly though, job displacement was more severe during the recession than it was during the pandemic.

In a forthcoming article, we use the same data to show that although the speed of reemployment between disabled and non-disabled workers was consistent over time, the overall time to reemployment was slightly less during the pandemic than the Great Recession. Moreover, the earnings penalty for reemployed workers with disabilities was less severe during the pandemic than in the recession. Whatever the case, these two periods represent different realities for workers.

When we finally were able to conclude our field experiment following COVID-19, we found that generally, people with disabilities received callbacks to the administrative or office jobs they applied for at the same rate as those without disabilities. This was less the case with labourer positions where in fact, disabled job applicants were significantly less likely to receive callbacks even though their resumes indicated the same ability and skill as applicants without disabilities. 

We’ve just presented this work at this year’s American Sociological Association meeting, and have been sharing it at other conferences/seminars throughout the year. Although we are still sifting through the data, we believe much of what is going on has to do with biases and misperceptions about disability and work – everything from low productivity to providing expensive accommodations to fear of litigation. At the same time, for some occupations, things appeared to have improved, and that’s a good thing for reducing employment and earnings gaps.

Being out of work can have long-lasting negative effects on labor market outcomes, including lower wages, prolonged unemployment, and increased economic insecurity.  Indeed, our work on Canadians with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the extent of job losses and those discouraged from continuing to look for work during that time. Those who continued to work shifted to remote work and many experienced increased workloads.

Employment, reemployment, and earnings after finding new work following the shock of COVID-19 suggest that broader structural changes during the pandemic have created some positive changes for many workers with disabilities. Grand scale changes including greater flexibility affecting a vast majority of workers have been in line with "universal accessibility" practices that could foster greater workplace inclusion. Yet, many of these changes are at risk as employers begin to push for “back to the office” policies.

No doubt, workers with disabilities continue to face many institutional and attitudinal hurdles at work. It is important to note, as one recent study has, that the kinds of accommodations and flexibility that allowed workers with disabilities during the pandemic to keep working and improve their earnings were only available in certain occupations and these varied by race, class, and gender. This means that policies seeking to further institutionalize things like flexible scheduling, remote work, and universal access must consider how people with different types of disabilities in their intersection with other statuses like race who occupy different kinds of jobs lead to varied labour market outcomes.

Having a commitment to addressing the intersections of the SDGs can combat against inequitable labor market outcomes, enabling us to collectively work towards a more just and accessible future for all.