DEV Community: Sejdi Gashi

Live and Online: Our Food Waste Reduction Platform is Almost Ready!

Sejdi Gashi — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 19:32:30 +0000

I’m excited to share a big milestone in our journey: our backend API and database are now live on DigitalOcean! This marks a major step from what started as a university project into a nearly ready, real-world platform to help reduce food waste.
If you’ve been following along, this project began as part of my internship and final semester requirement. From early brainstorming sessions and climbing the Laravel learning curve, it’s grown into a working app connecting businesses with surplus food to those who need it.

✅ What We’ve Accomplished:

Backend (Laravel) and MySQL database deployed on DigitalOcean
RESTful API endpoints tested and production-ready
Frontend (React) is almost done — just polishing UI/UX
End-to-end flow fully validated locally

🔧 What’s Left:

Squashing a few last-minute bugs and fine-tuning performance
Final round of usability testing
Collecting feedback from early testers

This has been a huge learning experience — not just technically (Laravel, React, deployment, testing), but also in understanding how to build something that can make a real-world impact.

🌐 Live app: https://ndihmo-tjetrin.netlify.app/

Thanks for reading! Would love to hear your thoughts — and if you've built anything similar, feel free to share.

From Idea to MVP: Our Food Waste Reduction Platform

Sejdi Gashi — Tue, 20 May 2025 08:56:11 +0000

About a month ago, I shared how my internship and final semester project came together perfectly, giving me the chance to dive into Laravel while building a platform to reduce food waste by connecting businesses with surplus food.

I’m excited to say we’re nearly done!

Over the past few weeks, our team has been polishing the app — fixing bugs, refining the user experience, and preparing for launch. The backend and database will be hosted soon, making the platform live and accessible.

Looking Back at the Tech Stack:

Backend: PHP Laravel — my internship experience gave me a strong foundation here, and I’ve deepened my understanding of scalable architecture, API development, and ORM relationships.
Frontend: React — my teammate has built a clean, responsive UI that complements the functionality we’ve worked hard to develop on the backend, resulting in a seamless user experience across the platform.
Database: MySQL — we designed the schema to handle complex relationships efficiently, especially for managing users, food listings, and organization profiles.

This project has been both technically and personally rewarding. We’ve approached it like a real-world product, learning through every challenge.

What’s Next:

Deploying the backend and database online
Final usability testing
Gathering feedback for improvements

If you’ve worked on something similar or have any tips for hosting and scaling Laravel apps, I’d love to connect and learn from your experience.

Thanks for following along — more updates soon!

My Journey Building a Food Waste Reduction App with Laravel

Sejdi Gashi — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 20:21:47 +0000

Three months ago, I started my internship as a backend developer. At the company, we use PHP Laravel to build scalable web applications, and this role has been an exciting opportunity for me to dive deep into the framework. So far, it’s been a rewarding experience.

Around the same time, during our 'Lab Course' subject in the final semester of Computer Science and Engineering, we were encouraged to work on real-world projects. The best part? We had complete freedom to turn our own ideas into functional applications. My team and I brainstormed several ideas, but one stood out: Food Waste Reduction. The concept was to create a platform that connects businesses and organizations to share surplus food and reduce waste. It felt like a meaningful way to apply our technical skills to a real-world problem.

Since I was already getting hands-on experience with Laravel during my internship, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to apply and expand on my skills. I suggested we use it for the backend of our project. The team agreed, and we moved forward with Laravel as our backend technology. It turned out to be the right decision — Laravel’s ecosystem, structure, and tooling made it easier to build a robust and scalable backend.

On the front end, my teammate is working with React to create an intuitive and responsive interface. This combination of Laravel for the backend and React for the front end has allowed us to build a seamless and efficient application. Throughout this journey, I’ve learned a lot — not just about Laravel, but also about building something that has both technical complexity and social impact.

What I’ve Learned So Far:

Structuring a Laravel project for scalability and maintainability
Using Eloquent ORM for managing complex database relationships
Building RESTful APIs and integrating them with other services
Collaborating effectively in a small dev team with real-world constraints

As part of the “Learn in Public” mindset, I’m sharing this journey to connect with the community, get feedback, and improve along the way. I’m excited about the progress we’ve made and will continue posting updates as we get closer to completing the project. If you’ve worked on something similar — or are just curious — I’d love to hear your thoughts!

P.S. Shoutout to ChatGPT for generating the cover image 😆