In this month’s installment of the Innovation of the Month series, we explore a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University, Allies for Children and several other community groups in Allegheny County, Pa., applying machine learning technology to addressing the disruption to school meal programs caused by COVID-19. MetroLab’s Ben Levine spoke with Karen Lightman and Stephen Smith at Carnegie Mellon University about the background and development of their project…

Metro21’s sister organization, Traffic21 Institute, offered some startup funding and Allies for Children connected us with the Penn Hills School District, an area where students were particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. Other critical partners to this deployment include the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Greater Pittsburgh community Food Bank, ACCESS Transportation Systems and Eat’n Park Restaurants.
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