We always talk about innovative technology and how it influences or can influence, but we barely see them in actions. Not necessarily in the meaning that those actions do not exist, more about they are being transparent amid general noise. So how comes WhatsApp chatbot into here?
Before WHO launched its WhatsApp bot, before Google made restrictions towards what and how you can talk about COVID-19 before the countries started closing borders before propaganda victims start burning 5G stations and before all the pandemic things did happen, we noticed a simple thing; there is something very important is going on and there is lots of both correct/incorrect information.
All we wanted is to make people aware of the right information. That’s how we started.
Our Facebook newsfeed, trending on Twitter, and hot topics on Google searches, definitely made us believe people are curious about a thing which later on called a pandemic. Whether it is a panic, care, or just curiosity, people need to receive correct information through the known channel.
1. Crawl Twitter Data using 30 Lines of Python Code
The main strategy behind the idea was to make it fast and wide. We chose WhatsApp as a platform to build this bot. Why WhatsApp? At that moment, we faced lots of fake news and misleading audio voices specifically via WhatsApp. Another reason is quite obvious — WhatsApp is the most popular messaging application in Azerbaijan (where the Botbox’ entire team located) and fairly saying, on the whole Earth too.
What’s the correct information stands for? There are still certain discussions on what is right, healthy, or vice versa. We decided to choose approximately the next targets for the WhatsApp chatbot COVID-19. Here they are:
- How to avoid it? (washing hands, etc.)
- Actual statistics (per country and worldwide)
- Age groups (infected, deaths, etc.)
- Symptoms (how and when react)
- Gossips (fake vs true)
- Coronavirus Map (world stats with the subscription option)
- Donations (local Coronavirus support fund)
We have got a tool where to deliver information, great. To make it consistent it should be updated within a second. Making it human-depended, first of all, is a fun thing for the chat-bot provider. Secondly — not efficient.
To get the correct information, we have used an API from the proper & independent source informing us about the latest numbers. Another important thing for users is consistency. Fortunately, our partner Twilio supported our initiative and made users’ life easier by giving them daily subscription options. We appreciate Twilio’s impact in this job a lot, otherwise, it would be way challenging for us to obtain these processes without them.
On the journey when we have acquired a quite huge amount of users within a day, we have understood it would be difficult to keep this process further. Both financially and resource management side too. Luckily again, UNDP & Tabib approached us to support our initiative and develop the bot’s content with professional inputs.
There is a say that when bad things happen the World comes together. Translating it to our case, Botbox is an omnichannel platform providing banking & financial sectors with chatbots and seems like it has nothing to do with pandemic like things. Tabib is a Medical Territorial Units Management Association which has nothing to do with technology directly but obtain huge knowledge & experience and right to speak on COVID-19 topic.
But all together with Tabib, UNDP, and Twilio, we have created a WhatsApp chatbot which 24/7 open for anybody from anywhere. Sometimes making it together reveals a better impact.
Enjoy our not-human dependent chatbot, designed by humans for humans.
