• info@techtribes.org
Website logo-01Website logo-01Website logo-01Website logo-01
  • Home
  • Who We Are
    • About
    • Our Team
    • FAQs
  • Our Work
    • Digital Literacy & Inclusion
    • Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship
    • Digital Participation & Advocacy
    • Non-Profit Tech
  • Blog
    • Tech for Good Case Studies
    • Tech Talk
    • News & Success Stories
  • Resources
  • Contact Us
English

Chatbots to fight hunger

Chutel, 2017

SDG: Goal 2 – Zero Hunger
Technology: Instant Messaging

What was the challenge/opportunity?

The World Food Programme (WFP) aims to end hunger and promote food security. They carry out food security analyses to assess and track the need for food assistance (GNU, 2017). Face-to-face interviews were used to understand and map the food needs. Since mobile phones have become more popular in the developed world, WFP started using SMS-messages to increase the reach and efficiency while lowering the cost of their monitoring actions significantly. Especially for more rural or dangerous areas, it was an advantage to use SMS-driven data collection. Many people in the developed countries are nowadays in possession of a smartphone and use social media to connect and talk with their friends and family (Chutel, 2017). Telecom operators in developed countries offer social bundles which provide for a single low price the access to unlimited Facebook, WhatsApp or other social media (MVAM, 2017).

MVAM, 2017

How innovators responded

WFP launched, with the help of InSTEDD and the Cisco Foundation, chatbots which are embedded in Facebook Messenger and Telegram (InSTEDD, 2018). The bots can interact in a more nuanced way with people than via the SMS surveys. The bots allow WFP to chat with “thousands of people of people simultaneously and in real-time” (VAM, 2018). People can take surveys via platforms they are very familiar with. Communications via Facebook instead of SMS can reduce the cost for both the respondent and WFP.

AI does not power the current version of the chatbot, but the chatbot asks a set of questions and stores the answers for further processing. At the same time, the bot can send a person vital information about the WFP programmes, weather updates, food prices and disease prevention (Chutel, 2017).

Risks

People chatting with WFP via the chatbot are sharing personal details with WFP. The people have often fled their country or home and would not want their personal information to fall into the wrong hands. Responsible data storage principles should be adhered to by WFP.

There might be a bias with the people reached via the chatbots. Although the use of social media is increasing, the current users might be the youth which is located in better off urban areas. Unconnected population in remote areas should still be reached via traditional survey methods.

With the increase of unstructured data coming in for WFP via the chatbots there lies a challenge to correctly process the data such that the relevant insights can be retrieved from the data. Both the chatbot and back-end infrastructure for data processing should be ready to make this new way of surveying work (Chutel, 2017).

Impact

The chatbot has been piloted in Kenya and should be rolled out to more countries during 2018. No results on the effects have been published yet. (MVAM, 2017)

Related Movie:

References:

Chutel, L. (2017, September 4). This aid agency is using chatbots to beat world hunger. Quartz Africa, Retrieved from https://qz.com/1066734/this-aid-agency-is-using-chatbots-to-beat-world-hunger/

GNU (2017, October 12). Chatbot: another ICT tool for development? Retrieved from https://www.gnucoop.com/chatbot-another-ict-tool-for-development/

InSTEDD (2018). “Foodbot”: developing a WFP chatbot to communicate with target populations. Retrieved from http://instedd.org/project/foodbot/

MVAM (2017, August 7). Our experiment using Facebook chatbots to improve humanitarian assistance. Retrieved from http://mvam.org/2017/08/07/our-experiment-using-facebook-chatbots-to-improve-humanitarian-assistance/

VAM (2018, May 24). Humanitarian chatbots: Kenya pilot. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASHROjd008s&frags=pl%2Cwn

 

Share
22
Tech Tribes
Tech Tribes
Tech Tribes helps young Arab changemakers, entrepreneurs, nonprofits & architect low-cost and replicable interactive tech solutions that can help them solve community issues and enhance public participation.

Related posts

September 1, 2020

Glucomate App: Turning Community Health Challenges into Scalable Healthcare Technology Opportunities


Read more

Sunderland University MBA student Abedalraham Al-Zghoul Picture: DAVID WOOD

November 3, 2019

Bread for Education: Creating Educational Opportunities Through Innovative Community Mobilisation.


Read more
November 2, 2019

SOWA EX App: Innovating Solid Waste Management via Consumer Engagement and Reward Systems.


Read more

Closeup of businessman holding smartphone with cloud computing symbol

October 30, 2019

Matar App: Collaborative Content Sharing and Audio-Recording for the Visually Impaired


Read more
August 28, 2018

Bringing online education to the world without internet


Read more

Rosen (2017)

August 27, 2018

Drones deliver blood for emergencies


Read more

All Categories

Contact Us

  • Address
  • Send Us a Message

Join Our Team

  • Careers
  • Internship Opportunities

Privacy Policy

  • Privacy Policy and Website Terms of Use
© 2020 Tech Tribes. All Rights Reserved.