This project came from our company being entered into a technology solutions competition run by Costa Coffee and Heathrow. It took place over 2 days.

We were given a problem and we needed to research and generate a solution to the problem and then present our findings to everyone and a panel of judges made up of Costa Coffee and Heathrow Airport representatives.

The problem the competition posted was the Costa Coffee cups require a specific method to break down and recycle, so Costa Coffee needed to recycle the cups themselves.

We therefore needed to create a way to increase the amount of Costa Coffee cups recycled at specific coffee cup recycling bins around Heathrow Airport.

Our solution was to use blockchain to transfer a virtual Costa cup to the user when they purchased a coffee, then when they throw the cup in the correct recycling bin, they can scan the bin (removing the blockchain Costa cup and validating that they did throw their cup away) and recieve points and rewards in return.

For the presentation, I designed a specific Costa Coffee recycle challenge app that would be use for a pilot, however, the launch version would be included in the Costa app.

In 2 days, I was a strong presence in the user research and product ideation, then I used any Costa branding material I could find to create an onbrand mockup of the pilot app, complete with a full flow and video explainer. Before then working on the presentation used to pitch our solution in the final presentation.

Our solution was very well recieved, awarding us first place in the competition, citing it as a unique and practical solution to the problem. It was an tiring but amazing 2 days and was a great feeling winning over the other great pitches that were made at the competition.