Every day on the streets of Mumbai thousands of children go hungry, and some even starve to death. With almost negligible resources and money, we set out with an NGO to find a solution. It needed to be simple, practical, cost-effective and eventually self-sustaining.

We got in touch with the Dabbawalas, a century old lunch delivery network famous for its 6-sigma practices, and found out that off the 120 tonnes of food they deliver every day, over 16 tonnes goes untouched-uneaten. Our solution – create a cost-effective instant response mechanism within the food network, than can get this food to the children without affecting their 6-sigma system. And so we created – the Share sticker. Untouched-uneaten food in your dabba (lunchbox)? Just put the Share sticker on it. The dabbawalas can now share these dabbas with hungry children on their way back, transforming a food-delivery network into a food-sharing network.

From just two hubs on the streets of Mumbai, this little sticker has managed to feed thousands. It also got the Human Resource Minister, mainline media, hundreds of sites and blogs, and thousands on social networking talking about the virtues of sharing food. We even saw the idea inspire private lunch services to proactively start sharing food. All this with a sticker that costs a mere fourth of a cent.

Two channels made sharing food a reality – the on-ground Dabbawala network and social media.

With the Share sticker we transformed the century old food-delivery network into a food-sharing network. The network itself distributed our Share stickers and communication cards, free of charge. Untouched-uneaten food in your dabba (lunchbox)? Just put the Share sticker on it. The dabbawalas can now instantly share these dabbas with the NGO and hungry children.

As news of the project spread, mainline media started covering it. This started a conversation on social networking which had thousands talking about the virtues of sharing food. Some of whom, including private lunch services, got inspired to start sharing food on their own.