Thousands United to Build Smarter AI Through Food Data

How a Web3-powered campaign redefined community collaboration in AI training.

In a digital world racing toward smarter machines, something remarkable happened: thousands of people from all corners of the globe came together — not to build a new app, but to train the future of artificial intelligence.

It all began with food.

Where Web3 Meets AI

Codatta’s Booster Campaign marked a bold step in reimagining how AI systems learn — by crowdsourcing data not from corporations, but from people. The goal? Build a decentralized food dataset that can teach AI not just what food is, but what food means across cultures, diets, and lifestyles.

From the very start, it was clear this wasn’t just another data annotation project. This was a movement. Powered by blockchain rewards, fueled by community passion, and grounded in real-world utility, the campaign turned everyday contributors into builders of a smarter AI future.

Looking Back: The Power of Participation

Week 1 of the campaign set the tone with staggering numbers:

• 👥 143,940+ new users onboarded
• 📆 60,000+ daily contributors engaged
• 📸 295,550+ food images submitted
• ✅ 90% submission approval rate
• 🧠 1.36 million+ food annotations completed
• 🌍 The dataset rapidly outgrew industry staples like Food-101 and OpenFoodFacts

This wasn’t just community engagement — it was mass mobilization. And the results set a new benchmark for what can be achieved when people are empowered with the right tools and incentives.

Teaching AI to Understand What’s on Your Plate

Building on this momentum, the second phase of the campaign shifted focus from image collection to dietary understanding. Contributors were challenged to label each food image as:

• Vegetarian
• Non-Vegetarian
• Mixed

This seemingly simple classification added a critical layer of context to the dataset. Beyond image recognition, the AI began to learn dietary relevance — how a dish might align with cultural or lifestyle choices, religious practices, or health constraints.

In an increasingly globalized world, this nuance matters.

Earn While You Train the Future

At the core of the Booster Campaign was a revolutionary idea: data contribution deserves compensation.

Every image submitted, every annotation made, earned participants $XNY tokens — the native token of the Codatta ecosystem. Contributors weren’t just helping train AI; they were becoming stakeholders in a future data economy.

Even better? Participation isn’t a one-time thing. Because of Codatta’s on-chain data provenance, contributors are eligible for future royalties as their data helps power real-world applications — from nutritional assistants to meal planning apps and beyond.

Why Food? Why Now?

Food may seem like a mundane starting point. But it’s anything but.

Food data is deeply personal, cultural, and health-related. It’s also ubiquitous, making it a perfect entry point for training versatile AI systems. By building the most diverse, community-curated food dataset to date, Codatta is laying the groundwork for:

• 🧑‍⚕️ AI-powered nutrition tracking
• 🥗 Personalized meal planning
• 📲 Recipe recommendation engines
• 📉 Health-focused food recognition tools
• 🤖 Cross-cultural food understanding in AI models

And this is just the beginning.

A New Model for AI Data Collection

What the Booster Campaign proved is this: data doesn’t have to come from surveillance or centralized scraping. It can come from empowered people. It can be open, fair, and traceable.

Through gamified tasks and token rewards, Codatta redefined how datasets are built — shifting power from platforms to people. Contributors didn’t just label images; they co-authored the future of AI.

The Movement Continues

While the early weeks of the campaign made headlines, the larger mission remains: build the world’s most comprehensive, ethical, and decentralized dataset for AI.

And it’s still open to all — students, developers, artists, fitness geeks, Web3 natives, or anyone simply curious about where AI is headed next.

Final Thoughts

The story of the Codatta Booster Campaign is more than a set of stats. It’s a blueprint.

A blueprint for how Web3 and AI can come together to create systems that are not just smart — but shared. Systems where participation is rewarded, diversity is baked in, and the very act of contribution helps shape a more intelligent, inclusive future.

And it all started with a photo of your lunch.