Liam Du - Featured NAFSN Student Leader
Liam is an emerging IT professional who very generously shared his aptitude in technology with NAFSN at a time and place when it has mattered the most. With outstanding listening skills, stoic sticktoitiveness, and a clear desire to deliver excellence, Liam has advanced several of our primary projects to the next level, and beyond.
The Community Food Systems Employment Data (COM*FED) is a national initiative to generate and share insights from the analysis of employment opportunity posts in this professional field. This project includes a practical component and a research component. Both components rely on data being managed as efficiently as possible. When Liam came on board with NAFSN in Summer 2023, he took time to better understand the process by which we did that work. Without prompting, he asked good questions and explored our steps so that he could fully understand areas for improvement. Within a month or so, Liam had written code for and installed a fully functioning âbotâ that enables the smooth integration of our data spreadsheet with our open-access jobs board. He has literally cut the time we need to do this work in half. This effort was not only efficacious, it was also very kind. Liam recognized our limited capacity as a small organization and created a solution that has increased the quality and quantity of data that we are processing and sharing with the general public and with our partner institutions.
The Community & Agriculture Resilience Audit Tool (CARAT) is a free, open-source tool for communities to self-assess how they currently utilize the assets of their local food system to achieve a substantial level of community resilience. CARAT is firmly rooted in equitable access and engagement, creating a team approach for auditing community resilience by actively seeking and including the voices and leadership of those most negatively impacted by its food systems. To do this, we needed a shareable platform for CARAT through which community members can collaborate. When Liam joined NAFSN in Summer 2023, he worked alongside another Cornell student to help the CARAT tool take shape as a downloadable, fillable PDF. During that process, Liam suggested that CARAT could also be made into a website, complete with collaborative mechanisms, insightful resource generating, and report making. It seemed like an impossible dream, as we started with nothing. No money, no website, nothing. But Liam wasn’t deterred. He used open source coding tools and taught himself to make this website, www.carattool.org. which went live in February. 2024 to a national audience of users.
The Community Food Systems Consultants Directory (CFSCD) is also a new feature for NAFSN, connecting consultants to the community-based organizations they serve. By listening and then responding thoughtfully to suggestions and feedback from more than a dozen experienced consultants from throughout the US, Liam built the directory from scratch - again with open source coding tools. It went live in November 2024.
It would be impossible to count how many details, how many iterations, and how many opinions and ideas Liam has had to juggle to accomplish these projects for NAFSN. He melds the know-how of his youthful, tech savvy generation with the softskills of a person much wiser than his years.