Ample Labs

We are applying to the Elevate Prize to intervene and prevent homelessness for XXX people in North America by utilizing technology. With the funding, we will rapidly scale our support service chatbot technology to streamline and simplify support service navigation to divert at-risk individuals from becoming chronically homeless while providing decision-makers with real-time data to make data-driven programmatic, policy and resource allocation decisions. The anticipated expenses needed to successfully execute, scale, and maximize our solutions’ impact is USD 1.6 million for the increased internal capacity necessary to expand quickly and capture market share. This includes additional Sr. and Jr. full-stack developers, additional Product and User Experience designers and researchers, data analysts, business developers and a customer support system for Chalmers Suite subscribers. The current cost to onboard a new Chalmers Chatbot user is $2; we will need additional growth marketers, community leads, graphic designers and copywriters to implement the targeted digital marketing campaigns necessary to reach our user goals. We have a backlog of new skills for the chatbot that were identified through our co-design workshops. With this additional capacity, we will build out those skills to better serve our end-users, including native Android and iOS applications. 

Ample Labs’ mission is to solve homelessness through prevention and equipping cities with real-time data to make better resourcing decisions that will reduce non-impactful spending, get better outcomes and prevent individuals from entering into chronic homelessness. Chalmers Chatbot was built because CG's friend was being evicted, and it was challenging to locate support services and there was a lack of digital support service navigation options that combines the technology we use each day to locate rides, food and consumer goods. We are excited about our suite of SaaS because we are leveraging emerging technology such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, infused with data science and predictive analytics to model things that have not been done before and collecting data that has never historically been captured or existed. This makes a leader in this frontier to tackling and solving homelessness worldwide. Our Goals for 3 years is to have 100 cities in North America at $250K a year for $250 Million in annual recurring revenue, have Chalmers Chatbot native android and iOS mobile applications, Chalmers Chatbot live to 60+ million people in North America, with 10 million unique users and be live in cities outside of North America.

Canada and the US spend $133 Billion+ a year on all their programs in homelessness/social services, yet the number of people who end up chronically homeless has doubled in the last 5-years. Cities are not intervening with at-risk individuals to prevent homelessness; rather, 90% of their resources go to individuals when they are already chronically homeless. Cities don’t have enough data on the homeless/hidden homeless to make data-driven decisions. They rely on Point-in-Time Data, which is collected every 1-2 years via survey with the chronically homeless accessing shelter services, therefore not capturing the most significant segments of the homeless population, those who are not receiving shelter support and the precariously housed. 

Our solution is our Software-as-a-Service product Chalmers Suite. Chalmers Suite consists of a public-facing, free-to-use, empathetic, support service navigation chatbot and a subscription-based data aggregation dashboard for decision-makers. Our technology addresses the gap in self-determined, anonymous, and efficient support navigation for the most vulnerable members of our communities and the lack of centralized, real-time, granular data on the demographics, demand and support gaps of the at-risk, hidden homeless and homeless populations. On-demand data collection and reporting agility are essential during a crisis such as COVID-19.

Chalmers Chatbot uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and natural language processing to evolve and continuously improve its ability to respond to enquiries and individuals’ behaviour/engagement with it. Chalmers Chatbot is the first artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that uses self-selected filters and geolocation to simplify real-time support service navigation to prevent homelessness. Chalmers Chatbot collects qualitative, quantitative, and passive behavioural data based on how the user engages with the Chatbot. Chalmers Enterprise Core aggregates Chalmers Chatbots’ real-time data and, through the dashboard, provides that information to cities, municipalities, regions, and communities. Decision-makers will have real-time data to make data-informed decisions regarding policy, planning and resource allocation to be more proactive in homelessness prevention and the capacity to track how those investments impact the target demographics in the short and long term. 

Chalmers Suite’s social benefits is the free-to-use, digital, simplified, anonymous and efficient support service navigation tool Chalmers Chatbot. Chalmers Chatbot impacts 3 audiences: end-users, first responders and service providers. End-users are impacted as they can access 211’s database of support service providers in their community through a self-directed and digital tool that utilizes geolocation and self-selected filters to refer them to tailored supports. Chalmers is 60X faster than Google at providing appropriate service recommendations to our end-users. Chalmers Chatbot is so effective that Community Outreach, Social Workers and concerned citizens are using our platform to make referrals for those in need. Through our partnership with 211, we have brought their robust Service Provider database online through our AI technology leading to a reduction in call wait times where Chalmers is live and increased access to basic necessities and youth’s critical needs by meeting them where they are, online!

To date, Chalmers Chatbot can divert 2% of all onboarded users from spiralling into homelessness, that’s over 200+ individuals in total, which is about $11 million in cost savings in our existing 7 service areas. Across North America, it would be thousands diverted from homelessness and billions in savings.