Solving Hunger in America

at Austin's SXSW conference? It may sound like a strange combination, but putting tech leaning minds together have brought solutions to many problems once thought daunting. Hunger just might be the next one solved.

The annual SXSW festival of music, film and interactive may be well known for its party atmosphere—they don’t call it “spring break for geeks” for nothing—but this year’s conference also set a lofty goal: to end hunger in America.

A mere glint in the eye of organizers last year, partners from across the spectrum of social entrepreneurship, non-profit organizations and tech innovators came together on Monday morning for the inaugural CauseLab. Designed as an “action tank,” WeCanEndThis.com brought in participants and leaders to spend half the day in one of two sessions addressing three fundamental angles of solving hunger in this country:

• Create hunger-free communities
• Humanize hunger using data
• Accelerate local action and advocacy

....Facing the problem of hunger head on is intimidating. If you look at the pure numbers—49 million Americans don’t know where their next meal is coming from—it can seem insurmountable. Breaking down hunger into solvable chunks is critical, and the teams in the room struggled to answer the call of getting past awareness campaigns. We’ve been inundated with slickly produced messages telling us that even $5 makes a difference, but it’s rare that we find programs that actually reward us with tangible knowledge that we’ve made a difference—and thus inspire us to participate again in the future. - AlterNet

We hope that you will come join us on Sundays at the Veterans Memorial Building for that tangible knowledge you've made a difference.