COVID19 CHATBOT IN TANZANIA.

COVID 19 has caused Tanzania's Government to look for ways to help solve miss information and to apply the principles of transparency, accountability, and participation to the COVID-19 responses, which poses a big problem of Tackling misinformation and disinformation among the communities, development partners and poses a big challenge of going into a traditional way of collaboration which is not favorable due to the current condition. In Collaboration with Tanzania's Government Chief Spokesperson Office, We have created an AI-Powered chatbot that helps to mobilize access to COVID 19 informations,bring  accountability and transparency between the Government and the development partners in the Country through Sharing of information including health data, intervention solutions/measures adopted/to be adopted, the number and location of confirmed COVID-19 cases by residence address, age groups and sources of infection. We have an API which gives access to our ready made Algorithm to scale this solution globally. 

In collaboration with Swahili Inspiration Media, we did a research on correspondences of COVID 19 around the continent of Africa, we discovered that over 85% of people could not distinguish COVID 19 fake news from original news, fake news is getting in the way as Africa responds to the COVID-19 pandemic. there are a lot of damaging coronavirus myths across the continent that if our solution does not reach across africa there is more risk of more deaths and fatalities. Currently there is no any African government that has initiated a dedicated platform to stem the spread of fake news. As the pandemic gains a foothold and unsubstantiated claims, fake news to the cures and advice do the rounds, Africa's people's health are at a tipping points needing our Solution.  

We have used Artificial intelligence technology to create a dedicated chatbot phone number (Using Twillio API) that can provide 24/7 verified informations from the Government of Tanzania which is accessible through whatsapp chats and also responsive to normal traditional texts. citizens can chart with it 24/7 non stop instantly in request/question to any information regarding COVID 19 in Tanzania. Developing Partners, Civil Societies can also use the platform to give data to the government and suggestions regarding corona virus responses.  

Our Solution currently serves citizens of Tanzania, although anyone can request any COVID 19 Tanzania data from anywhere across the world through our platform,  As people seek answers, fake news has lead some to be misinformed which lead to the bigger the chances of an outbreak. Our Solution has impacted over 6500 citizens who have visited our platform in seeking of answers which has contributed to reduce panic in Social medias which threw some fake news and cures such as mixing garlic and honey, consuming cow urine and many more being taken as cure, And it does not stop there we have analyzed our data and found out that fear and anxiety  have caused locals to run away from foreign-looking people and businesses. 

This Challenge gives our solution a chance to tackle misinformation of COVID 19 which is spreading even faster and is quite deadly too, the importance of accurate and timely information in these times cannot be ignored, There are 200 million + social media users in Africa and WhatsApp is the most preferred platform.Whatsapp  is used by 70 percent of internet users in Tanzania alone; Currently our platform uses Swahili Language which is the National language of Tanzania and is used by 99% of East africa Population. 

Our Biggest Competitor is a newly introduced  WHO Coronavirus Disease Dashboard which gives daily daily COVID 19 situational by Country, Territory or area through Web access, Our Solution uses an intelligent chatbot number which uses Swahili in a conversational way with citizens regarding daily COVID 19 responses in a focus to tackle misinformation hence our solution still standout to our targeted Tanzanians who do not have access to web, internet and who do not know English language, there is currently no any other solution that is simalar or considered a threat/direct competitor apart from WHO Coronavirus Disease Dashboard. 

We are using Artificial Intelligence to train our conversational model through Azure bot services, and we used Twillio API to access a customised number which makes these intelligent conversations. 

There are variety of industry use to this kind of technology, Example Banking Industries have been using this technology to make conversations with their customers, various banks such as the United Bank of Africa has a conversational chatbot called LEO which is a Twillio number using Artificial Intelligence to act as a financial assistant, which helps with various financial transactions over a live chat. 

Our Theory is towards a belief of 'Stronger together' we believe that any change requires people who work together as a Team.

Our Current pilot project number is 6500, expected to rise exponentially after deplying it in public. 

In one Year we are aiming to reach 5,000,000 people, the population of Internet users in Tanzania is 30 million and we a aiming 6% of it in our first Year. 

In Five Years we are aiming to have 50 million users across the continent. 

We are planning to increase our solution's organic users by making our solution easier for people to find via the search engines when they search for keywords we’re targeting or their variations. We are aiming to use also different organic channels as part of our marketing strategy to improve our scalability. We are targeting long-tail keywords for our target audience, We are aiming to connect with influencers via social media, and pitch guest blog posts. Our go to market approach is massively due to influencer marketing which is easy to penetrate in African markets.  

Our biggest challenge is Funding to acquire a solution's server space which is more secure like Azure Cloud Hosting servers, also costs associated with Azure Cognitive services for our Machine learning services. also Funding for marketing and other administrative issues poses a big challenge. Other challenges like legal, technical and cultural aren't posing a big challenge. 

We have bootstrapped ourselves to accommodate the pilot project, by using  Azure App Services for monthly costing of $500, Language Understanding Intelligence Cognitive Services for $ 1000, and Twillio services for $300; making our monthly technical costs to be $1800 whereof pilot marketing and administrative costs make a total of $2500 we have only bootstrapped for $5000 which makes a two months burn rate to July 2020; We are always looking out for grants, and competitions as well as seed capital financing opportunities like this one on a daily basis; 

NILL

We a full time of Three people. 

We an artificial intelligence professional, Community Health professional and a Leadership major professional, this diversity brings  uniqueness to fit into bringing a solution to life.

We are collaborating with the Tanzania Chief's Spokesperson to get COVID 19 public data from their office which we daily use to train our conversational chatbot. 

We use a Freemium Model whereby people have free access to our chatbot, but we commercialize the public data through sales of insights to investors on strategic locations and businesses.  Also we are expecting to use Ads for advertisements of various businesses that relate to the customers searching experiences such as ''Health foods or fitness physical exercises during covid 19 '' we can display businesses that offer such tools. 

We expect to bring money through sales of our data, raising investment capital, and through donations and grants. We have a dedicated person who helps with grants/donations applications, and our CEO is striving to bring in capital investors. 

We believe SOLVE not only will give us access to funding but a diverse network of MIT , Mentors and fellow solvers will give us access to find our strategic partners, investors and corporate clients for our data sales and advertisements. 

We want partners who will help us scale our solution and helping us across the way in delivering our solution in the right possible way. 

We would like to partner with MIT by accessing talent pool of volunteers who would like to work with us remotely in advancing our Solution across Africa. 

COVID 19 Misinformation remains difficult to stop on social media, According to Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford found that roughly one third of social media users across the world reported seeing false or misleading information about coronavirus. For these kind of reasons, We have created an intelligent communication chatbot using Artificial Intelligence which helps Government officials and public leaders who are dealing with this global health crisis daily to provide accurate, scientific information on a regular basis in combating misinformation and rumor regarding COVID 19, We will use the Prize to Scale in more Countries. 

COVID 19 Misinformation remains difficult to stop on social media, According to Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford found that roughly one third of social media users across the world reported seeing false or misleading information about coronavirus. For these kind of reasons, We have created an intelligent communication chatbot using Artificial Intelligence which helps Government officials and public leaders who are dealing with this global health crisis daily to provide accurate, scientific information on a regular basis in combating misinformation and rumor regarding COVID 19, We will use the Prize to Scale in more Countries and advance our AI Algorithms. 

COVID 19 Misinformation remains difficult to stop on social media, According to Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford found that roughly one third of social media users across the world reported seeing false or misleading information about coronavirus. For these kind of reasons, We have created an intelligent communication chatbot using Artificial Intelligence which helps Government officials and public leaders who are dealing with this global health crisis daily to provide accurate, scientific information on a regular basis in combating misinformation and rumor regarding COVID 19, of which some of them are refugees come with Coronavirus, We will use the Prize to Scale in more Countries and bring the right information to citizens. 

COVID 19 Misinformation remains difficult to stop on social media, According to Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford found that roughly one third of social media users across the world reported seeing false or misleading information about coronavirus. For these kind of reasons, We have created an intelligent communication chatbot using Artificial Intelligence which helps Government officials and public leaders who are dealing with this global health crisis daily to provide accurate, scientific information on a regular basis in combating misinformation and rumor regarding COVID 19, We will use the Prize to Scale in more Countries.