Our upcoming Chat for Impact in the time of COVID webinar on 18 November will offer an opportunity to explore the learnings and opportunities of chatbot solutions since the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic in March this year.
Taking place on November 18th at 2pm (UK time), the webinar is being presented by Turn.io and Fundación Capital, both organisations having developed systems to use Chat effectively for social impact.
This important conversation will spotlight the role of Chat as an easy way for people to access credible and accurate information on the rapidly changing measures against the pandemic and its impact on people’s social and financial lives, and for governments and organisations to provide it through a direct channel.
Panelists will include Andy Patison (WHO), Rodrigo de Reyes (Fundación Capital), Shahed Alam (Noora Health), Debbie Rogers (Praekelt.org) and Hansel Quintero (Hora Cero). They will share their journey and experiences developing the global WHO’s Health Alert, the Con-Héctor virtual assistant in Colombia, the ContactNDOH line and HealthCheck in South Africa, the Noora Health messaging service in India and the Chatbot Hora Cero in Nicaragua.
The webinar’s moderator is Catherine Cheney, Senior Reporter for Devex – a media platform for the global development community. In that role, Cheney covers the West Coast of the U.S., focusing on the role of technology, innovation, and philanthropy in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented growth in the digital transformation of education, business, government activity, human interactions and society at large,” adds Turn.io’s Co-Founder Gustav Praekelt.
“Chat has had a crucial role in this transformation by validating the use of chat platforms like WhatsApp, to amplify the reach of real time, credible information on health measures, financial health, business digitisation, security and others. We are excited to share our learnings and challenges with a broader audience during the webinar.”
“In almost half a year of work against the pandemic, chat solutions for good have had extraordinary results and learnings,” says Fundación Capital’s Nelly Ramírez, VP of Advanced Digital Services. “The webinar will explore these as well as look at the challenges that a pandemic brings to the response capacities of social impact organisations and initiatives.”
The chatbots to be highlighted during the webinar are:
WHO Health Alert: The World Health Organization's free, automated 24-hour WhatsApp Health Alert which provides up-to-date Covid-19 information including, the latest global figures, how the virus spreads, symptoms and treatment via a user-friendly menu of options. WHO HealthAlert also offers an interactive Stress Management guide which helps you learn practical skills for management of stress during these unprecedented times.
Con-Héctor: A two-way virtual assistant that connects people at the base of the pyramid with relevant content, mentoring, resources, goods and services in order to improve their quality of life (economic citizenship) based on their specific context. It was deployed when lockdowns began in Colombia, Mexico and Peru to support people at the base of the pyramid who were losing their livelihoods, and women in particular as intimate partner violence was increasing. As a WhatsApp based virtual assistant, in 4 months it has reached 1,708 users with over 12,869 interactions.
ContactNDOH line and HealthCheck: ContactNDOH is the South African National Department of Health’s COVID-19 Response Line. The WhatsApp-based helpline was developed in March to deliver accurate, up-to-date information to South African citizens during the ongoing pandemic. HealthCheck is a COVID-19 digital self-assessment tool which allows for early detection, mapping and management of COVID-19 cases using USSD and the official COVID-19 WhatsApp Service (COVID-19 CONNECT).
Noora Health: 'Care Companion' is the Turn.io based messaging service that helps empower family caregivers of patients after health events such as childbirth or surgery. Evidence based medicine meets design to convey culturally appropriate content and answers to questions when families need them the most. Care Companion is available across 150+ hospitals in 4 states in India. Noora Health also supports the Government of Bangladesh Health Department's WhatsApp based COVID-19 information service, and a healthcare worker specific line as well.
Chatbot Hora Cero: It provides scientifically verified and WHO approved information on the COVID-19 pandemic in Nicaragua, where the government is curbing citizen's ability to access facts about the disease. The chatbot includes information about the disease, a myth-buster and a self check test for users to be empowered to make decisions on their own health. Users can also access a medical and mental health hotline.
Among the topics that the webinar will address are the problems that needed solving by the chat services in the spotlight, how the solutions came to be, in what ways the chatbots have helped people, how they evaluate and measure impact and, importantly, what learnings they have found crucial during the pandemic and how they perceive their role in the future as some countries experience a second wave.
* After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
November 4, 2020
