The Pursuit of Zero Food Waste: A Gamified Approach Promoting Avoidance of Dormitory Mess Food Wastage in Educational Institutions

Abstract

Games are ordered activities, generally undertaken for recreation. The design elements of these games are being used by people all around the planet to make this world a better place. The opportunities for gamification are being discussed in this chapter along with the use of a decision-making method as both have been applied to the study using a local running mobile application as platform for encouraging students enrolled in various educational institutions to promote avoidance of mess food wastage and in gaining confidence to integrate to use this approach to fight the cause of this global malady in their everyday life. The overarching issue of student mentality about food wastage is being discussed along with how to merge gamification with digital technology in this aspect and its participatory design. This provides the background for addressing points of using a gameful system to foster empowerment and connection among the students of NIT Jalandhar where this case was studied and the proposed approach was implemented.