Project Description

Company background
The Food Truck Advancement Community (FTAC) operates as an independent support organization dedicated to fostering a healthy and sustainable mobile food business industry. We maintain an arms-length relationship with the businesses we support – we don’t own or operate any mobile food businesses ourselves. Instead, our role is to provide resources, tools, and guidance that enable entrepreneurs to make informed decisions and build sustainable businesses. Through these projects, we aim to develop practical tools that support mobile food businesses at every stage of their journey.

Project scope and deliverables
The Food Trucks Association of Canada (FTAC) seeks to develop a scalable and user-friendly data visualization and analysis platform for food truck regulations across Canada. The project aims to transform the current system of spreadsheets and online forms into a comprehensive suite of tools that can effectively aggregate, analyze, and visualize regulatory data from over 150 cities across Canada.

Key objectives of the platform include:

1. Data Integration: Develop a system to efficiently import and store regulatory data from various sources (spreadsheets, online forms) into a centralized database.
2. Data Visualization: Create interactive and intuitive visualizations that allow users to:
   • View and compare regulations across different cities
   • Aggregate data at provincial and national levels
   • Identify trends and patterns in regulatory approaches
3. Comparative Analysis: Implement tools for users to easily compare regulations between cities, provinces, or against national averages.
4. Scalability: Design the system to accommodate future growth, potentially including more cities or additional types of regulatory data.
5. User-Friendly Interface: Develop an intuitive interface that allows non-technical users to easily navigate, filter, and analyze the data.
6. Reporting: Include capabilities to generate custom reports based on user-defined criteria.

Students should focus on creating a tool that is both powerful in its analytical capabilities and accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise. The solution should be designed with consideration for long-term maintenance and sustainability, keeping in mind the budget constraints of non-profit organizations.
For the full project brief, please visit:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19d5i4vDN7qyHbeBEveX_Ua3SEuL73bSYamq-39DKhIg/edit?usp=sharing