RBC HubHacks · Practice presentation, Friday

Food Gap Finder team brief

From Jacob. I've built on Ali's Community Navigator so the food insecurity pitch runs on real Halifax data. I'm away on Friday, so this page covers what changed, which numbers to use and how to present it.

▶ Watch the 2-minute tour Open the app Judge prep: Q&A and how to explain the data

Public link: community-navigator-hubhacks.pages.dev. Anyone can open it, with no login.

The pitch in one line

Most HRM food banks are open while people are at work. Using real bus timetables, we show which high-need neighbourhoods have no food bank they can reach while it's open, and we name the cheapest evening pilot that fixes the biggest gap.

8,573high-need residents near a bus with no after-work food bank option. This is our target group.

87%of the time a food bank is open and reachable falls during working hours

5,354of them get an option from one Thursday 5–7 PM session at Halifax West Ecumenical

~$1,200for an 8-week pilot. Placeholder estimate: confirm with a food bank.

Context: 26.2% of Nova Scotians were food insecure in 2024, the highest of any province (NS Finance / StatCan). Food bank visits are up 82% since 2019, and about 1 in 4 clients are employed (Feed NS / HungerCount).

What changed in Ali's prototype

Area	Ali's version	Now
Resident view "Find Food" tab	Pick from 10 service categories, synthetic results	An app-style food finder. Start from a street address, your location or a tap on the map, then pick when you're leaving. It lists the food banks and meal programs that will be open when you arrive, with trip time, hours, phone and bus directions. If nothing is open, it shows the next time you could go. Ali's category flow is still there under "Looking for other community services?"
Organization view "Partner Insights" tab	Synthetic demand dashboard	The problem, the target group and the pilot, followed by a gap map you can zoom and pan, a neighbourhood drill-down, a top-gaps table, two pilot options and a cost calculator. Ali's dashboard is still there as "Next phase: service demand tracking", labelled synthetic.
Map	None	Offline map of HRM with real streets. Scroll or pinch to zoom, drag to move. Three layers: gap score, open-and-reachable hours and after-work hours.
Data	1,200 synthetic rows	Feed NS food programs with opening hours, the Halifax Transit timetable (GTFS), Census 2021 blocks and areas, the Canadian Index of Multiple Deprivation 2021, and HRM streets.
Analysis	`python/analysis.py` makes synthetic data	`python/gap_finder/` routes every populated census block to every food program, every 30 minutes for a full week, by bus and on foot. It runs in about 30 seconds, and every assumption is in `config.py`.
Tour	None	"▶ Take the 2-minute tour" in the header plays through the live app step by step. Use it to rehearse, or as a backup if the live demo fails.

Slides for Friday (8 slides, about 5 minutes)

Title. Food Gap Finder: reaching food when it's open.
The problem. NS has the highest food insecurity rate of any province, food bank use keeps rising, and more clients are working.
The hidden gap. HRM residents can reach an open food bank about 20 hours a week, but only about 2.5 of those hours are after work. That leaves 8,573 high-need people with no after-work option.
Demo: resident. Find Food from 330 Lacewood Dr. Tuesday 8 AM gives several options. Thursday 5:30 PM gives nothing, and the app shows the next chance.
Demo: partner. Switch the map to after-work hours (everything outside the downtown core goes pale), then click Keshen Goodman in the table.
The pilot. Option A: an extra Thursday 5–7 PM session at Halifax West Ecumenical (5,354 people). Option B: a mobile pantry at Bedford Hwy and Hammonds Plains Rd (5,569 people).
Cost and benefit. Use the calculator live. Recommend A: an existing building, volunteers and supply chain, with no capital or zoning.
Feasibility, risks and the ask. Running cost is about $0 (static site plus two scripts). No personal data. The ask: Feed NS shares agency hours, and one 8-week pilot.

The full outline, Q&A prep and demo script are in docs/PITCH_PLAN.md in the repo.

Likely judge questions

"Why another food app?" The partner side is a planning tool for Feed NS and HRM. The resident side could feed into 211 rather than compete with it.
"Who maintains it?" Rerun two scripts each quarter when Halifax Transit updates its timetable. Feed NS already maintains the hours.
"Are the travel times right?" They come from Halifax Transit's published timetable and include walking and waiting. We spot-checked trips we know.
"Isn't need measured too coarsely?" Yes. It's area-level deprivation, not household income. The pilot would test it.
"What about rural HRM?" About 100,000 residents have no bus stop within 800 m. They need community transport or delivery, so we report them separately.

Before Friday

Three things to check. These are known weak spots, and it's better to raise them before a judge does.

Pilot costs are placeholders. $150 a session and 25 households a session are guesses. If someone can call Halifax West Ecumenical Food Bank (Gesner St), we can use real numbers in the calculator.
Check the top of the gap table. One high-ranked area is near the Atlantic School of Theology and is probably student housing. Porters Lake and North Preston have thin bus service, so their fix may not be a food bank session.
One listing looks wrong. St. Mark's Food Bank shows Tuesday 9–11 PM on Feed NS, which may be a typo for AM.

Suggested split

Who	Task
Ali	Review the `gap-finder` branch and merge it if happy. Then deploy to GitHub Pages so "Use my location" works on phones.
Data person	Sanity-check the top 12 gaps (see "Before Friday").
Business / MBAN	Get real pilot costs from one food bank, or keep them labelled as estimates.
Presenter	Build the 8 slides and rehearse the demo. Watch the tour first: it follows the same path.
Everyone	Mock Q&A, with one person playing a sceptical RBC judge.

For whoever runs the code

Branch: gap-finder on Ali's repo. It's committed on Jacob's machine and not pushed yet. The live site is hosted on Jacob's Cloudflare Pages account.
Refresh the data: python python/gap_finder/fetch_data.py, then build_gap_data.py, then build_street_data.py.
New files: js/find_food.js (resident app), js/gap_finder.js (partner view), js/gap_map.js (map), js/tour.js (tour), and js/gap_data.js plus js/street_data.js (generated data).
Method and limits: docs/GAP_FINDER.md.
Location: "Use my location" needs a normal web host such as GitHub Pages. In the shared preview link, use street search or tap the map.

Data: Feed Nova Scotia Find Food (hours retrieved 27 Oct 2026) · Halifax Transit GTFS (Aug–Nov 2026 schedule) · Statistics Canada Census 2021 and CIMD 2021 via HRM Open Data · HRM Street Network.