Today, we’re honored to have Adeleye Oriola Mesogboriwon, a dynamic product manager who specializes in product design and innovation. Adeleye led his team to a third-place finish in the prestigious Kroger Zero Hunger Zero Waste Challenge, held in the Metaverse. His team’s innovative approach to promoting healthier lifestyle choices and sustainability is truly inspiring. Additionally, Adeleye is the visionary behind HBCUGPT, a generative AI designed to enhance the accessibility of career and scholarship opportunities for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Adeleye, thank you for joining us. Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your role in the Kroger Zero Hunger Zero Waste Challenge?
Yes, My name is Adeleye Oriola Mesogboriwon. I am a product manager with a special emphasis on product design and innovation. I was the team lead for my team that participated in the Kroger Zero Hunger Zero Waste Challenge in the Metaverse, where we won third place.
What motivated you and your team to participate in the Kroger Zero Hunger Zero Waste Challenge?
My teammates and I got to participate in this competition as metascholars. To participate, you have to submit an application with essays and your resume to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, where we were chosen as the top 25 out of more than a thousand applications. After I was selected as a Metascholar, I had to go through the rigorous process of being part of the top 5 at the end of the program which now made me eligible to participate in the competition. This process involves completing numerous tasks in the metaverse. Also, while the other teams we competed with were in person in Cleveland, Ohio, we were pitching from the metaverse. The main thing that kept the fire within us alive and made us go through this rigorous process to participate was our penchant for using technology to drive change in our community and the world at large.
Can you describe the project you presented at the challenge?
Yes sure, our project prompt was, “What can Kroger do to encourage healthier choices and be a leader in the Food as Medicine concept?”.Our approach was two-fold but is tied to a brand character we named “Veggie.” For the first part, “Veggie” would be in-store in different aisles, giving customers clues about what is healthy and what healthy eating entails. This is not to say that some junk and other goods Kroger sells shouldn’t be bought, but rather, it advocates that every food should be consumed in moderation. The second part is about catching them young because we believe the best way to change and influence future generations to make healthier food choices is by teaching them very early. We intend to achieve this by incorporating a game regarding healthy eating as a feature on Kroger’s current mobile app. The main character of this App would still be “Veggie”. This game would be very engaging, and kids would learn a lot about healthy eating while playing it. They would also be able to gain points and redeem them for healthy foods across Kroger stores. I led the team’s Ideation and made the App prototype so Judges would see how it would look in real time once implemented.
What were some of the major challenges you faced during the competition, and how did you overcome them?
The major challenge was having to meet my teammates in the metaverse. Don’t get me wrong, it was the most fun part of the experience, but since it is something I had to do at least three times daily in the week of the competition, it was exceedingly exhausting. For more context, the Oculus Quest 2 headset is heavy and would make the eyes blurry if there is any slight shift. Each of our meetings is at least 2 hours. That is 6 hours daily with the Oculus on my head. Another challenge we faced was justifying the business decision of targeting the App portion of Veggie to kids when kids are not typically the ones doing grocery shopping for homes. Kroger, as a business, would want to make money, but “Veggie” wouldn’t make any immediate money for them. We had to do a deep search and highlight other areas where they would gain in the future by doing this investment now.
How did your team collaborate to bring this project to life?
The main things that made us achieve this are willingness, Hunger for success, and the belief that we can win. Everybody was on their best and did their jobs without much reminders which made all our work smoother. It was easy for us to collaborate because we had already established trust during the course of the Metascholars program where we completed several team tasks..
What impact do you believe your project can have on reducing hunger and waste?
Our initiative is designed to instill sustainable habits early on, particularly targeting waste reduction and promoting nutritional education. By engaging children, “Veggie” helps cultivate a mindset that prioritizes not just personal health but also environmental sustainability. This early education is crucial, as it sets the groundwork for responsible consumption patterns that can significantly reduce food waste and improve nutritional standards in communities.
Moving on to another impressive initiative, can you tell us about HBCUGPT? What inspired its creation?
HBCUGPT is a generative AI I built leveraging the chatGPT framework and capabilities. Its aim is to provide career advice, scholarship opportunities, and internship opportunities to students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities. I got a lot of opportunities as an international undergraduate student and discovered that even local students got less than I got. Upon further inquiry, I found it is not because they are less intelligent but because of a lack of information. The more they know about these opportunities, the more they will take control of it and put themselves out there.
What role did you play in developing HBCUGPT, and what were some of the key features of this initiative?
I made HBCUGPT all by myself. One key feature I focused on the most was personalization. Before HBCUGPT would give you any response, you have to tell it your major, classification, GPA, and any other information so it can avoid giving you a generic response where you are not even qualified for the opportunities it is sharing with you.
How has HBCUGPT been received by the community and what are its long-term goals?
I have gotten a warm reception so far, and more and more students are using it and adopting it. My plan is to keep pushing it so that every HBCU student starts using it. The long-term goal is to have every HBCU student use it, but for that to happen, it has to become more efficient, and it can only become more efficient if I feed it more data. So most of my work subsequently on it would be data gathering.
What challenges did you face while creating HBCUGPT, and how did you address them?
The main challenges I faced were gathering data and trying to understand how GPTs are made in the first place. I did a lot of research online, and with each research, things became clearer. It was hard for me to do because generative AI is relatively new, and there are not enough resources for beginners to use it or work with it. I was able to navigate these challenges by reading more.
