Voices Of Venezuela

Vulnerable communities lack access to information and infrastructure needed for integration into the formal economy.  By connecting educational media and helplines into social media and messaging platforms that include free data on mobile plans, we can integrate solutions with reduced adoption barriers.  This education will include the soft skills needed to apply for jobs, start businesses, access continuing education, or training programs, prepare resumes, and interview.

Network data can be used to monitor accessibility issues and diagnose service gaps while educating and connecting users to available services.  This model can be replicated for additional populations.  As our informational resource database grows and our models develop, increased overlap between communities enables scaling to an AI based recommendation system covering a wide knowledge base of available resources and processes.  At a global scale this could bring information and guided direction to millions of people seeking education and opportunity.

Among other challenges, there is a knowledge and accessibility gap between migrants and refugees and the services and resources that can improve their quality of life.  Our pilot focuses on the 1.8 million Venezuelan migrants in Colombia (of the almost 6 million total), a situation which is expected to pass the Syrian crisis in scale.  As of last year, only $65 in humanitarian funding was spent per person, compared to over $3,150 per person in the Syrian crisis (Brookings).  The migratory flow from Venezuela to Colombia constitutes a major challenge for the institutional framework and the effective integration of this population. Displaced people are often disconnected from information about healthcare, education, employment, and applicable laws and processes.  Our tools enable them to access government and other organizational resources. Few of them have computers, but smartphones commonly act as their primary means of communication.  With no single reliable source of reliable information, they are at risk of receiving incorrect or malicious information. 

We are creating an AI leveraged expert system using helplines and tailored media to educate and increase self sufficiency through a network of connected services that build massive engagement.  We then use the data from that engagement to improve services, monitor sector needs, and find service gaps and accessibility barriers.  We partner with service providers, government agencies, and NGOs with viable solutions that are under-utilized due to lack of community buy-in or information barriers.  We create educational media for our media channels and then connect our helplines to their services.  These helplines educate using contextual and culturally relevant explanations and connect with tailored solutions using machine learning algorithms created from conversations.  We are able to then monitor uptake and needs through user input and integrated surveys.  Connecting our helplines to the informational video on our helplines can drive information viral through positive feedback loops, helping us reach some of the best engagement on social media, averaging 40-60 times the sector engagement average during our test.  In our first year, our pilots have around 600,000 direct messages and 150,000 comments which we are using to build diverse NLP/NLU models for our AI system. 

Currently we are piloting with the 1.8 million Venezuelan migrant community in Colombia.  Migrants have difficulty entering the formal labor market and integrating into their community and the national system allowing access to education, job training, and economic opportunities.   Available information is not always accessible or easy to understand, wasting time and money.  Our communications agents are themselves migrants that have already navigated the Colombian government and social systems, for whom we have provided additional training to use information we have researched and verified with government agencies and NGOs.  We engage migrants through helplines and Live Q&As on social media, incorporating a number of feedback loops that let us understand needs as they change over time.  We also conduct surveys and work in communication groups with local government, UN agencies, and NGOs to make sure that our work is focused on needs that are not served elsewhere.

Guidance is provided in culturally appropriate language, free of charge, often through the direct access channels on WhatsApp and Telegram.  Weekly we schedule live events on Facebook where we receive hundreds to thousands of concerns from migrants distributed throughout the country, giving clarity to each of them. Our media channels have over two million minutes of informational video watched since we started about a year ago, with over 150,000 comments and 600,000 messages over our helplines.  As a specific example of engaging the target population, we piloted a program called La Migra Ruta, creating media and then automating delivery of the information through the migrant helplines in partnership with 5 municipal governments in the Department of Norte de Santander.  In this 2 month pilot we automated 12,000 conversations delivering information that was specific to their location using audiovisual material about their Covid 19 prevention and accessing healthcare with the Secretary of Health for these cities.  In essence, our solution explains information in a contextual way, using pathways that have the least barriers, then automates similar instances as 95% of the Venezuelan migrant population was surveyed at having internet restrictions and no access to a computer.  Using media we helped tens of thousands with information and have automated over 75,000 conversations explaining how to access services.

The Challenge is consistent with our objective of assembling and disseminating information that will improve quality of life among Venezuelan migrants and other populations at risk for unemployment, restricted access to education, and reliance on informal, and sometimes exploitative, economies.  Access to academic and employment opportunities and basic navigation of social and governmental procedures is fundamental to inclusion and prosperity.  Our goal is to teach necessary soft skills, recognize existing credentials, and connect to existing training or job opportunities, especially those focused on the digital economy where employment is limited less by location.  This also includes connecting migrants to online training opportunities that can help them find work in the digital economy, assisting with resumes, job interviews, and the soft skills needed to enter the formal workforce.

We are running a series of pilots within the Venezuelan migrant community in Colombia to enhance their access to services, build support for government/private organizations, educate, and assess the optimum methods to achieve these goals.  We have accumulated 65,000 subscribers across platforms, 2 million minutes of educational video watched, 150,000 comments on our informational channels, and 600,000 messages sent back and forth to answer questions in a one to one format.  We have NGO and government partners on multiple concurrent grants, and additional business and tech partners.  As we grow our partners and user base we are using minimal viable products while we continue to develop our system technology that can be scaled.  Even though we already have traction from several successful pilots, the scope of this project means that for a growth phase additional funding is needed for staff and other resources to move beyond MVPs.

We are leveraging existing technology in new ways to produce massive engagement focused on delivering problem solving information and solutions to vulnerable communities.  Key to our efforts is use of existing mobile apps like WhatsApp and Facebook, noting they often have no extra cost for the data involved.  Of particular benefit is that our helpline answers every question received, employing AI bots that tie researched answers to repeated questions.  Our founder puts a human face to the media and we are building our bot with her unique virtual persona, and eventually a digital avatar.  

The platform identifies problems for vulnerable communities through a monitoring service that uses machine learning models.  By  promoting migrant  participation through digital channels, we increased our reach and growth many times that of other organizations that work with issues related to human rights and Venezuelan migration.  We will use our helpline data to update community needs and keep resource information useful and interesting.  The innovation involves tapping low barrier access points to deliver valuable services in a rarely found level of engagement and trust, all while creating multiple positive feedback loops to improve the system, partner services, and the humanitarian sector as a whole, then leveraging AI to scale this globally through a system of backend databases on resources and local services accessible through API from an AI system with diverse NLP and NLU models built from direct conversations with individual populations.  By then tracking needs we can interpret the relative standards of living and accessibility issues that communities have.

Helplines using real agents for collecting datasets, through which NLP and NLU models will be built using both supervised and unsupervised machine learning.  These models form the core of our bots delivering pre-verified information, AI recommendations, and direct access to agents trained in mental health and other priority needs either through NLU recognition of need or user ask.  The AI expert recommendation system uses the models developed searching our informational database’s API.  Data collected then gets used in a cloud monitoring system for near real time insights showing changes in need and identifying gaps that will help organizational partners, researchers, and government agencies improve their services.  We integrate our AI backed services into existing, easily accessible, low barrier platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook to disseminate educational media and collect data to help us diagnose the challenges they are experiencing and respond to their concerns.  We are partnering with other technology companies in the creation of our AI system.  Our main AI focused partner, has created large libraries of open source code from dozens if not hundreds of social impact AI projects around the world which can be leveraged as we grow.

We have 3 successful pilots.  A media pilot to deliver problem solving information on social media reached over 2.6 million people, had over a million interactions, and 2 million minutes watched.  It also had some of the highest engagement rates on Facebook at the time.  The second pilot, our messaging helpline, has around 600,000 messages with over 20,000 users.  It also completely automated over 75,000 conversations that provided information needed to access a basic service.  Messaging helplines are in common use.  For example, WHO built the world’s largest WhatsApp service for their COVID helpline, using Turn.io, the organization that is helping us with ours.  Our third pilot was articulating these two services with municipal governments and NGOs.

Delivering information to migrants using internet connectivity was demonstrated as by the Government of Mexico as far back as 2000 and 2010 through the Sistema Nacional E-Mexico, where they designed the e-migrantes portal that linked to institutional pages. It presented problems since not all had access to a computer and at that time the pages were not frequently updated. However, it was a program that took into account that the effective way to deal with the migratory phenomenon is by providing them with digital informational resources.  As for monitoring services that are many, and and service claiming to make changes needs a way to track those changes.  Our innovation comes from connecting these technologies in new ways and then developing proprietary machine learning models made from the high quality data.  AI recommendation systems and NLP/NLU trained AI chat has come a long way the last few years from Siri/Google Assistant/Alexa and more to GPT-3 which can be used to create a personified response.  Even though GPT-3 is not perfect it shows where the technology is going.

                                                                                                      

We are working with vulnerable populations, which always brings additional concerns.  We work with the community directly, including them in our staffing and through partnerships to make sure their privacy and security are protected.  We co-design with the community.  Dealing with data collection we separate/isolate the personal information from general data and follow data protection policies we developed with our pro-bono legal partners.  We also use security practices such as encryption and physical 2FA keys.  Personal information will be siloed and separate security measures will be used between systems with APIs limiting access points. When it comes to monitoring services, government and sector partners will not have direct access to datasets, only relevant analysis.  Like most technology there is the possibility of it getting created for noble reasons but over time turning into something more focused on the pursuit of profit.  The goal is to move the ownership of this technology to a nonprofit(that we will create) or nonprofit alliance to better maintain our core beliefs and mission over the years.  As for the data delivered through this technology, we are implementing rating systems and feedback loops to flag potential issues with outdated information.  As we gain resources, we will be following nonprofit recommendations for use of technology to help insure that risks to individuals, especially the vulnerable groups we seek to help is mitigated using best practices.

Our pilots currently have 65,000 subscribers over several platforms.  This is estimated to be around 40,000 to 45,000 unique users.  Our WhatsApp helpline, the most direct service, has almost 21,000 users.

In one year we will be serving 100,000 users on our helplines and reaching millions over media. 

In 5 years we expect to have helped millions through chat helplines, covering multiple populations and our solution opened up to other organizations through APIs and SaaS.

We intend to make use of digital communication resources and the implementation of advanced integrated artificial intelligence systems that allow us to deliver and receive information of interest. The idea is that we have developments in the programs of identification of the routes of attention and protection of the rights of migrants in the cities and migratory corridors of Colombia. The raising of the resources that consolidate the network will be obtained through a strong institutional relationship, which requires constant communication channels for data exchange and promotion of programs and activities.  The objective is to consolidate in the next 5 years this support network, which has the means of diffusion, use and sustainability that allow it to offer the service in other countries with the same needs and other populations.  We aspire to become an observatory of human rights related to women and the migrant LGBTI population, strengthening the provision of information on inclusion mechanisms in rights protection processes, access to educational opportunities and job placement programs aimed especially at this population.

Initially, the technical indicators of progress were measured through the levels of interaction and reach in the content and activities carried out on social networks and the queries made to the automated and personalized channels of the WhatsApp line.  The evolution of content on networks and developments on WhatsApp arose from direct dialogue with migrants.  With technology as the main ally, each development on the platforms has been implemented with the aim of increasing the impact on vulnerable communities. Progress is to be measured in our reach, engagement, and through surveys.

With the La Migra Ruta program, for example, we programmed the automation of responses to the line, offering in the pilot program the institutional access data available in the beneficiary municipalities. The results showed us that in reality the information that was automated was of broad interest to the migrant community, obtaining consultation measurements eleven times higher than expected.  Using what we learned we are building an integrated survey system to check solution uptake, find accessibility issues, and rate user feedback.

8 full time (founders/staff)

3 contractors (development team)

Over the last year our team has become one of the most trusted voices for Venezuelan migrants in Colombia.  We are almost completely staffed by members of our target migrant and host communities.  Nery, our public face and founder is herself a refugee who has become a trusted face to the migrant community.  She learned first hand how to navigate the system in Colombia as a Venezuelan refugee, sharing her knowledge with the community and eventually training other women to do so in our messaging helpline.  She came from a management background in hotels, as well as working administratively in pharmaceuticals and communications infrastructure companies (including grid, underwater cables, and satellite).  Operations are led by entrepreneur and medical specialist Jason Rovig, who first came to Colombia as a Certified Prosthetist and Orthotist to improve prosthetic standards for people who sustained amputations in landmines and bombings during the conflict in Colombia.  He has worked internationally with vulnerable and marginalized communities for 15 years and is an award winning photographer, as well as artist and independent journalist published in both trade and peer reviewed journals.  Together they have created an award winning service with a talented team to get to the next level.  We have a team PhDs researchers, PhD psychologist, an MD clinical psychiatrist consulting, and have formed partnerships with other organizations to improve our data management and AI capabilities, until we have the resources to bring these in house.

We are a multidisciplinary team of Venezuelan, Colombian, and American members with diverse backgrounds and experiences.  Voices Of Venezuela is led by a Venezuelan migrant woman who is the image and director of the Voices of Venezuela project.  Over half of our team is Latinx, over half are female including key decision making positions.  This is representative of our users who make up 80% of the engagement with our services.  We also have a team of experts we are developing for mental health and human rights response with specialists in Medicine, Psychology and research.  This group of women specialists (who also identify with the LGTBI community) will let us better assess needs, develop protocols for our services, and label conversations more accurately for creating NLU models to identify time sensitive needs.  Voices of Venezuela is a space for dialogue run with empathy, both within the migrant populations who consult us, as well as the members of our team.  Our goal is to create community led teams that are generally autonomous in their decision making, so that voices from each community are able to craft the messages around that community's specific needs.  

The T-Prize would let us expand our platform to focus on education and job readiness so we can help prepare migrants and other vulnerable groups to enter the formal job market.  With the partnerships and funding of the Challenge we will be better able to create educational media training, increase the capability and scope of our helpline and make a positive impact facilitating community integration processes.  As our work started as a grassroots project, our two biggest barriers are financing and tech talent.  Being associated with an educational program that could help us with some of our tech needs would greatly reduce our current barriers.

We need partnerships to help us further develop the technology and fund scaling our solution.  We could also use advice from more experienced business and nonprofit leaders as we continue to grow and navigate our way through different private sector, academic, and nonprofit ecosystems.

In addition to local and national government partners in focus countries, we would like to partner with MIT Media Lab and other tech companies that have volunteer programs or other forms of technical assistance.