William Friend, Jack Kitto, Kate Hanbury and Dannyra Heng built a custom solution for Her Kitchen Table. Photo: Tyler Cherry.
It’s not every day university students are given the chance to make an impact on a social enterprise.
When an opportunity with food service provider Her Kitchen Table presented itself to four UC Faculty of Science and Technology students, they made the most of it – and learned some valuable lessons in the process.
Her Kitchen Table (HKT) is a Canberra social enterprise connecting the community with authentic foods from different cultures. The model is built on empowering women, mostly from culturally diverse backgrounds, by allowing them to share their food creations with the community.
“The idea came from looking at the strengths of migrant women, many of them are really good cooks,” HKT co-founder and The Social Outcomes Lab (SOULAB) managing director Nazia Ahmed says.
“In Canberra, there isn’t as much variety of different cultural foods as other Australian cities, so we thought we could leverage off that and offer a meal service.”
Nazia Ahmed is the founder and director of the Social Outcomes Lab and the co-founder of Her Kitchen Table. Photo: Supplied.
HKT allows home cooks (aka Meal Artists) to sell their dishes through an online platform. They receive training and supervision from a professional chef, as well as business training and other support, including access to a commercial kitchen for food preparation.
Despite a slow start, the service eventually started getting requests for corporate catering, but the growth in demand created some issues with the program’s manually intensive order management processes, prompting Nazia to seek a systems upgrade.
A meeting at the 2023 Social Innovation Conference with UC Associate Professor of Information Systems Ahmed Imran led to HKT becoming a host program for UC’s Capstone Projects, a semester-long initiative with industry partners.
“It was a great opportunity to partner with a social enterprise that aligns with UC’s vision of connecting with the Canberra community – and give our students a chance to make an impact,” Ahmed says.
“It allowed us to embody a vision of advocacy for driving digital equity through skills imparted to our students.”
IT students William Friend, Jack Kitto, Dannyra Heng and Kate Hanbury were assigned to the project and tasked to build a solution that would streamline ordering, production and delivery.
“The idea was for the group to deliver a workable solution for the business,” UC Senior Lecturer in Government Informatics and the group’s mentor, Jeannette Cotterill, says.
First, the group had to understand what HKT was all about and create a custom solution that was in line with its vision.
“In our first meeting, Nazia gave us an overview of HKT and shared amazing stories about some of the women that signed up to be Meal Artists,” William says.
The Capstone team are awarded with certificates at the end of their project for Her Kitchen Table. Photo: Liam Budge
“We were inspired by some of the stories and challenges faced by these women – knowing a business like this exists in Canberra really motivated us,” Dannyra adds.”
“The manual processes were compromising operational efficiency and scalability, so we developed a kitchen management system (KMS) that optimises their operations and puts the focus back on the food,” William says.
“The goals were streamlining and automating operational processes, ensuring accessibility, serving authenticity and supporting scalability to maximise profits for Meal Artists.”
The KMS automates several processes, including order management and coordinating Meal Artists and menu availability, while sending notifications to ensure stakeholders receive timely updates. A user-friendly interface enables customers, Meal Artists and coordinators to interact seamlessly with the system, creating a smoother customer experience and allowing the Meal Artists to focus on preparing delicious, authentic meals.
The team also included manual touch points to allow Meal Artists, customers and coordinators to touch base and discuss any parts of the order.
“Nazia emphasised that human connection was important to the business as it preserves the authenticity of the service,” Dannyra says.
But as Jack noted, “From a software development standpoint, I always want to automate everything. But working with HKT, you realise that the human interaction is a key part of why it works”.
While the limited timeframe and scope to work on the project meant the team couldn’t add everything they wanted, working with HKT left a lasting impression.
Jack noted that working on the project felt meaningful, as he saw tangible benefits while working with people from diverse backgrounds.
For Kate, the experience demonstrated that a person-centred approach was the key to success.
“It was an eye-opening experience working with an external client that had a strong social focus and working with their needs. It highlighted the importance of communication and personal connection within small businesses,” she says.
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