When John Akinboyewa studied at the Colorado School of Mines for his engineering degrees, he recalled digging in the couch for change to afford a 99-cent meal at Taco Bell or McDonald’s — coming to $1.08 with tax.

“I remember that number so vividly,” he said. His very next thought: “There is pizza or a sandwich or cookies somewhere on this campus that is fastly approaching the trash can.”

That college experience sparked the idea for a new app called Hungree. And in the last year, Akinboyewa, a 39-year-old Denver resident, and his three team members have brought his vision to life.

The free app follows a basic premise: A user in a small geographic area who wants to get rid of a food item can post it for another user to request and then pick up. Restaurants, food banks and other sizable providers can connect with individuals, and neighbors can link with neighbors.

Users can share either with the public or solely within their own “villages,” which are limited to specific groups like religious organizations or homeowners associations.

The app can be used to arrange very small-scale and extremely large-scale food distribution, Akinboyewa added. If an office staffer has 25 leftover sandwiches after an event, then that user can post the food items in their village and alert others to the surplus.

But to work effectively, the app needs a balance of both providers and users.

He’s developed the app to protect user privacy, keep track of food donations, avoid lines at food pickups and more. In its beta phase, the app granted access to 500 invite-only users across six cities in four countries — the U.S., Nigeria, Colombia and the United Kingdom — before expanding to nearly 1,000 users, Akinboyewa said.

Soon, his team plans to permit tens of thousands of users through several university, community and business partnerships, he said.

The app is available now on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, using an invite code: HUNGREE500.

For Akinboyewa, who was born in Nigeria and resided in London before immigrating to the U.S., the Hungree app is a way to fight hunger and curb food waste. In the places he’s lived, he’s seen the struggle of food insecurity.

Now, he’s watching his strategy work in real time. A local steakhouse manager listed leftover meals on the app — three servings of steak and vegetables — and another user picked them up to hand out to people experiencing homelessness, Akinboyewa said.

“I love solving problems,” said Akinboyewa, who has a background as a consultant in the oil and gas industry. “Sometimes, the simple solution is actually what works.”

To take his app to the next level, Akinboyewa hopes to garner institutional and organizational support. He’s discussed the idea with leaders at the University of Colorado Boulder who are in charge of off-campus housing, which could result in thousands of students accessing the app.

Akinboyewa wants to connect with local businesses and feature them on the app, too. He’s looking for financial backing that lets him roll it out on a larger scale.

Hungree’s nonprofit status was approved by the state on Monday. But the organization’s technology branch is for-profit, with plans to make money through investors and a business model that will eventually let users pay for enhanced features, Akinboyewa said.

“I’ll be sincere about something: Being Black in tech, you’re not connected to the right communities to help get the funding,” he said.

Still, he’s seeing progress globally. And in the next few weeks, a major update will bring multilingual support to the app, expanding beyond English to add Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and Turkish.

Akinboyewa’s hope: “In five to seven years, we want half a billion people on there,” he said. “There are big dreams to this.”

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Originally Published: July 23, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.