President's Prize winner engineers solutions to fight food waste

Each year, The Ohio State University selects two graduating seniors to receive the President’s Prize, the university’s highest honor given to exceptional students committed to social change.

Dominique Hadad, a recent industrial and systems engineering graduate, was selected from among a group of applicants who submitted ideas for projects with the potential to make a meaningful impact on society, and that furthered the university’s mission of addressing some of the world’s most important and pressing challenges.

Hadad’s project, Green Scope Consulting, is a sustainability-focused consulting program for small, food-related businesses in the Columbus region. In Central Ohio, food waste costs $400 million a year, resulting in wasted money, time and resources. Green Scope will use predictive analytics to help prevent unnecessary waste, leverage community resources to rescue waste, and implement innovative strategies to compost necessary waste – all in an effort to cut costs for the business and propel the goals of the community.

“Being able to work with small businesses, understand their operations and see things that maybe they haven't seen yet or help them to become stronger in areas that they know they need more expertise on—that's where it will get really interesting,” said Hadad. “We get to help support these small businesses to achieve these sustainability efforts that they're interested in accomplishing, and also bringing our community to being more sustainable and more unified by bringing these small businesses along, because their impact really matters.”

Recipients of the President’s Prize receive a $50,000 living stipend and up to $50,000 in startup funding. They are also able to tap into Ohio State’s global community of alumni, supporters and partners while working with faculty mentors and other experts to launch their projects.

“I'm really excited for the year to come and for what potentially could be growth for Green Scope Consulting in the years to follow after my President's Prize project,” said Hadad. “All in all, I’m just really grateful and excited to bring my engineering experience and all that I’ve learned at Ohio State to the community and to the topic of sustainability.”

Now in its fifth year, the President’s Prize honors Ohio State’s founding purpose of offering an excellent education while elevating society through research – a reflection of the university motto, “Education for Citizenship.” Awarded annually, the prize is funded solely through donor contributions.