GlutApp

A mobile application that scans a product's barcode and identifies whether or not it contains gluten.

The solution we offer is a mobile application that simplifies the daily routine of celiacs, their families and friends.

The app we have programmed, GlutApp, can scan a product's barcode to indicate if it contains gluten, traces or if it is gluten free. It also shows the product's name, brand and ingredients, as well as a photograph. To obtain this information we use a public database called "Open Food Facts". This database includes more than 10.000 products, and new ones can be easily added.

We have also created a "Frequently Asked Questions" section, where we can answer any doubts our users may have and where we explain some basic information about celiac disease.

For the time being, GlutApp can be used in two languages: English and Spanish. In future updates, the number of available languages will increase.

GlutApp is already uploaded in Play Store and we are working on uploading it to the App Store. We are also developing future versions so our app not only detects gluten, but other allergens too, thus, we will be able to help more people.

The problem we have targeted is the misinformation about celiac disease and the difficulty many people face when trying to identify gluten free products.

Celiac disease is a worldwide problem, since people are not born celiac, they develop the disease at any point in their lives. Around 1% of the global population (a percentage that keeps growing every year) is celiac. 

In the following graph we can appreciate the increase of celiac incidence over the years.

Sometimes it is hard to find gluten free products, besides, the vast majority of celiacs are undiagnosed.

The lack of information about this disease contributes to less people being diagnosed, which can lead to serious health problems, a consequence of not following a gluten free diet. Some examples of health problems that can be a consequence of not following a gluten free diet if you are a celiac are: undernourishment, weakening of the bones, infertility and miscarriage, lactose intolerance, cancer and anemia, among others...

By creating GlutApp, we want to raise awareness about celiac disease and make easier the daily routine of celiacs and their relatives. For example, they will be able to identify immediately gluten free products when going to the supermarket, by only scanning their barcodes.

Our target population are celiacs, their relatives and friends, regardless of their age, nationality, sex... This is because celiac disease can be developed at any point in life, so anyone can become celiac.

This population has been underserved for years due to the unavailability of free mobile apps that indicate correctly if a product is gluten free. We carried out a competitor analysis and discovered that there aren't many apps addressing this problem, and those that exist either don't work correctly or only have a few products in their database. 

In the following table we have 

For this reason we built GlutApp, to both identify gluten free products and raise awareness about celiac disease.

To find out if GlutApp would be useful for celiacs and people around them, we have conducted a survey of 94 people with celiac disease.
 We asked if they have or know of any application that correctly indicates whether a product has gluten or not, and 94.7% answered no.  The rest say that they know such an application but that it does not work well.  This was supported by our study of the competition, from which we concluded that there are few free apps that when scanning the barcode of a product correctly indicate whether it is suitable for celiacs, and those that do exist do not have many products.
 In the survey we also asked if an application of that style that works would be useful to them, to which more than 90% answered yes.

The unmet needs we are trying to address is the lack of information about celiac disease and the difficulty that exists when identifying gluten free products in the supermarkets, restaurants, or even in the houses of our relatives and friends. 

Our main objective is to simplify the life of the celiacs and their close ones by making their trips to the supermarket easier, quicker, safer and stress free. 

Our solution is important because being a celiac and not following a gluten free diet can lead to serious health problems (anemia, weakening of the bones, cancer, undernourishment...). Moreover, the fact that the disease can be developed at any point of our lives means that any newly diagnosed celiacs risk being misinformed about various aspects such as: the  side effects of this condition, the products they can consume and can not consume...

In conclusion, Glutapp's aim is to help celiacs. However, in the future we hope to be able to help people who have other allergies.

As he we have said in previous questions, GlutApp is already available on Google Play, and has been tested and downloaded by users from different parts of Spain, specially from the autonomous community of the Canary Islands, where this project was born. Our app has already been downloaded by more than 60 users from Spain, and we keep growing thanks to social media platforms, where more people keep discovering the solution we offer.

We will also be having the chance to promote our project professionnaly thanks to an advertising campaign we won at an event for entrepreneurs (Final Sprint II), organized by the university of our city (the University of La Laguna).

We have already written our business and financial plan. Due to the fact that the most important feature of GlutApp (the scanner) is free, because every celiac and family live different economic situations, our financial plan is based on a premium GlutApp version we are designing, that includes other supporting features: the possibility of saving products, no advertisements on the app, etc.

We have used Thunkable to create our app. Thunkable is a block-based programming platform.

We get the information on the scanned product from a public database: Open Food Facts, using a web API. Our algorithm looks at different fields to find the product's name, brand, image and ingredients. We also check some other fields to see wether it is labeled as gluten-free or not. If there isn't a label that gives us this information, we check the ingredients to verify if any of them indicates the presence of gluten. If the product's aren't found either, we tell the user that there isn't enough information to know if it contains gluten or not.

We use Firebase as a database to store the information of a product if a problem is reported, to either improve the algorithm or add the missing information to the public database.

We uploaded our application to Play Store two months ago and we already count with more than 70 users. 

Due to the fact that we are contacting various organizations and people related to the world of celiac disease, and that we are promoting ourselves via social media, we expect to serve more than 150 users this next year.

Our aim is to help as many people as possible (celiacs, their families and friends). GlutApp will simplify trips to the supermarket, will allow celiacs to eat at their friends house (because they will be able to check if the ingredientes used to prepare a meal are gluten free or not), they will not have to be constantly worrying about eating a certain product or not, etc.

Some examples of indicators we are using to measure our progress are:

- Reduction of inequalities: when we finish developing our premium version, GlutApp will still be having a free version that includes the most important featurev of the app (apart from other), the scanner that indicates if a product is gluten free or not. We have decided this because not every single person is living a good economic situation, and no one chooses to develop celiac disease. For this reason, all celiacs and their relatives should have the possibility to access this solution, regardless of their economic situation.

- Good health and well-being: when creating GlutApp, our goals have always been to simplify the life of celiacs and raise awareness about this disease. Raising awareness about this condition is extremely important, because as we have mentioned in previous points, being celiac and not followig a gluten free diet can lead to other serious health problems.

We have some barriers that enable us to accomplish our goals. Firstly, the marketing issue. To be able to help people, they have to know about the app, if they do not know Glutapp exists, they will not download it. Nevertheless, we have won a price that consists on the opportunity to be advertised locally. This is a great way to start, however, we would find it extremely useful if we could reach people from other places of Spain and countries.

Another barrier we face is technological. We are young and not very experienced, so there are things we do not know how to do. We are having troubles in uploading it to App Store.

We have troubles with financial and legal problems too, since we are underage and inexperienced in many important fields.

Being a team formed by four girls with different interests contributes a lot of diversity. We have a lot of ideas, we are very creative and hard-working.

We have accomplished a lot of things thanks to our effort and dedication, to our research abilities and thanks to our team work.

One of the team members is celiac, so she is able to give us her personal experience of the problems she's faced and how GlutApp helps her, as well as ideas on how to improve it.

Another team member likes programming and has quite a lot of experience for her age. Thanks to her knowledge and experience, we were able to create a reliable algorithm for our app.

We ask people who use the app regularly for their opinion, and things they would like to improve. We have also asked celiacs about how useful this app would be to them. This made us realize that the app can be even more helpful to the families and friends of the celiacs since they aren't used to checking products for gluten.

We currently do not partner with any organization, but we have already contacted our regional celiac organization, to partner up with them.

We considered we are qualified for this prize as we are a group formed by four 17 year old girls, who are studying their last year of high school and are about to start university. We want to help people, and that is the main reason why we chose to help the unattended celiac community.

If we won the prize, we would use the money to invest in our app, improving it, so it worked better and could detect more allergens. We would plan to invest as well in a marketing campaign, to promote our app.