Interview with Model G20® Alumni and Founders of MealMatch

Arnav Machavarapu and Cameron Meyer met in 2019 through a virtual summer entrepreneurship program for high school students called LaunchX. In 2020, the students attended our education nonprofit’s first Virtual Model G20 Summit: Imagining a Post-Pandemic World.

Machavarapu and Meyer’s creation, MealMatch, is growing up into a full-fledged philanthropic powerhouse that connects donors and their surplus food with an easy network around their city to respond to requests for real nourishment — not just the old can of garbanzo beans at the back of the pantry.

The following interview between the two young entrepreneurs and Knovva Academy (the sponsor for education opportunities that also hosts Model G20) took place on December 16, 2020, under the glow of the impending Christmas break and after a hazy week of exams for the two students. How are these high schoolers feeding whole municipalities, how are they working to bring the service to larger and even more needy areas, and how are they doing it so early?

Introducing MealMatchAre you someone in need of food or someone looking to provide meals to those in need? MealMatch is the place for you! Our platform connects people in need of food with donors willing to provide meals. We consider factors such as location, food preference, time of meal delivery, provider 4 reputation, and meal size.Our mission is to alleviate hunger in these tumultuous times. Everyone should have a meal on the table for their family, regardless of their financial status.

Knovva Academy: Describe your app to me, what does it do? What are your favorite features behind it?

Cameron Meyer: Our app connects people in need of food to other people organization restaurants that can essentially provide for free. What we’ve done has made it easy for donors to post their donations in a style that’s kind of social media. It’s easy for people to kind of see available donations in their area, if they’re looking for food. And it’s the same in reverse, where the people looking for food can easily find donors by pinging specific organizations or groups that are offering food in the area.

Also, we have a leaderboard feature. Not necessarily gamifying donations, but making it more fun to help the community by competing with your friends or working together to make an impact.

Arnav Machavarapu: One of my favorite features about the app is the location API that our developers added to help donors or requesters put in their location to that specific area. I think it’s a really cool way to help make the whole process more efficient.

KA: I seriously love the idea for the app. Do you have a grander vision for it? Do you have a bigger vision about building a company around it that takes it out of the smartphone arena?

CM: We do have an online presence already with a pretty successful Instagram. In the future, we definitely see ourselves branching out of food and working on connecting people with other things that they may need, like clothing. We want to do that by partnering with organizations that share our mission and have access to these things.

KA: MealMatch was designed around the app, but do you feel a sense of culture or community developing on the app, bringing it into the real world? Do you want to foster clusters of users around the city that the app is in, so people can organize around themselves rather than just through the app?

AM: I think it would be cool to see certain MealMatch communities, whether that be in Austin, where I live or, or in the bay area where Cameron lives. Seeing groups of people come together and be able to make a food drive, or just work together as a community in order to help nourish the people living in that area.

CM: In addition, we’re launching our ambassadorship program. What we want to do is expand and allow people in the community to promote your match to others who may want to donate their own meals to people in need. Through that kind of network we can definitely develop a tighter knit community.

KA: I know that you guys only met recently — last Summer. Did the app idea come together while in your initial meeting period, or after? Describe your process toward taking it off the ground.

CM: I remember we had an online network, and I wanted to help my community in some way. I told my idea to Arnav because we connected earlier, and he shared my vision. He brought a lot of ideas to the table.

AM: I think we met over Slack or Discord. Cameron said, “I have this idea to help suppress food insecurity.” And we brainstormed and developed models later, and now here we are with MealMatch.

KA: It sounds like you guys have people working around you. Are they about your age? Or were you getting guidance from people who are experienced app designers or founders in their own way?

CM: We have a team of nine. They’re all working with us directly and are all high schoolers. Most of them are seniors. Some of them are juniors. And then some of them are in Arnav’s grade. Then we also have mentors. One of them is from the Bay Area at a company for gene therapy. We also have another mentor from the Boston area, who also launched his own medical startup.

KA: Have you both always been interested in app development, or just coding generally?

AM: Personally, I’m not a huge coder. I know a few languages here and there. But app development is not a big part of what I do. It’s more focusing on the business development side of things and how logistics are going to work. When we first came together, we were primarily looking for coders that could help us with this vision.

CM: I’m kind of similar in that I’m more into business development on the entrepreneurial side. We found a few guys who are great at coding and who are into computer science. This team of coders recently submitted MealMatch to the congressional app challenge. And they were able to win it for a district in New York.

KA: Both being on the periphery of coding, have you become more interested in it as MealMatch has grown? Do you think that maybe, instead of delegating next time, you’re going to try your hand at doing it yourself? Or like Cameron, you said, you’re going to focus on business development?

AM: I’m going to try and understand it more specifically. Because if you’re the business developer, and you’re not understanding how your app really works, you’re not going to be able to do as much as you would like to be able to. So I think, understanding the process, the algorithms, everything that goes into it is necessary.

CM: I definitely think it’s important to understand at a baseline level, although I don’t think I can see myself in coding. I think there’s a lot of people out in this world who are passionate about computer science, so why not leverage those people and give them an opportunity to expand?

KA: Is this the first app you’ve ever made? For MealMatch, how far do you think you can take this?

CM: I definitely think it’s a business that is necessary in this world. So I see myself taking it as far as I can, we’ve already received a lot of positive feedback. I think that the community is going to be receptive to this, and will continue to be for quite a long time.

AM: I share the same sentiments with Cameron.

KA: Do you want to stick in this philanthropic sphere? Or are you interested in more commercial stuff for the future?

AM: I’m not sure about expanding into another genre of an app, but probably expanding MealMatch itself into providing more urgent basic needs, whether that be clothing or shelter.

CM: I would agree, but as a student in high school with limited amounts of time and a true devotion to MealMatch, I want to center my attention around this.

KA: Do you have any new features in mind that you’d like to bring to this app? We talked about how you guys are interested in at least seeing the culture expand.

AM: I personally want to see a system where we could get involved with restaurants and be able to donate into the hands of people who need the food. Whether that be sponsoring a meal or for a restaurant to give a request or a meal. There have been many articles and studies regarding restaurant waste, so finding a way to limit that.

CM: I’m excited about a feature that is still in the works, but that we definitely want to implement in our beta two or three. This feature would allow people to not just donate meals, but to donate money or gift cards to restaurants in the person’s area. Essentially, I can donate Arnav twenty bucks to go to Chipotle. And he could go to Chipotle with that voucher and even get a discount at Chipotle. So he’s getting money to pay for the meal, but he’s also getting a discount.

KA: Wonderful. Final question: what can Knovva do to support your app?

CM: You have a vast community of high school students, and the way to help is to promote MealMatch. We just want people to know about MealMatch, so that we can create communities throughout the United States.

Learn More About Knovva Academy

The Model G20® is an annual student leadership program hosted by Knovva Academy that welcomes students from all around the globe. Through mirroring the real G20, students take an innovative and simulatory approach to developing their leadership skills. Students play active roles among key G20 participants, and gain firsthand experience on diplomacy and addressing global challenges. As the leader in education opportunities for all, Knovva Academy provides the tools necessary for future global ambassadors.