At a hackathon at our university, we made a basic prototype for a website called ConnecTable, which aims to address the rise in loneliness in big western cities by reducing the stigma associated with meeting strangers over meals. The concept is simple: if you're at a dining hall/cafe/food court/other eatery, and are alone, the website can help you find someone to eat with. Simply scan a QR code on your table/receipt, answer 3 quick questions, and based on that, if the algorithm thinks there's someone in this eatery who is also alone and would be a good match for you, it matches you two up! This way, you neither have to feel stigmatised about interrupting someone's meal nor wonder if they will be fun to talk to. Win-win!

Ultimately though, even though both we and the judges loved the concept, none of us are realistically ever going to be able to pursue this concept to the extent it deserves. There’s a lot of further information, including our code and a deployed demo, at https://github.com/yuvraj-sarda/ConnecTable/ in case you’re interested in learning more. It’ll be amazing if someone builds this!