Through
the advent of Messenger and bots, messaging platforms have rapidly
increased their impact in reaching users with life-changing content.
Leading this technological evolution in
low and middle income countries, the Praekelt Foundation will launch a
new chatbot for Messenger integrated into the South African Nation
Department of Health’s MomConnect, at the 21st International AIDS
Conference in Durban on July 19, 2016.
The bot will provide mothers a more
affordable, engaging way to access the stage-based messages currently
provided by the technology’s SMS services.
Founded in 2007, Praekelt Foundation
uses open source technologies to deliver essential information and
inclusive services to millions of people in low-income countries.
With over ten million South Africans now
on Facebook, and over 75% using it on their mobile devices, Praekelt
has chosen to expand MomConnect services through the introduction of the
bot.
The newest innovation in messaging
technology, bots unlock the ability to provide personalised, interactive
communication akin to talking to a human customer service or sales rep,
but at scale for much cheaper than call centers.
MomConnect’s new bot will be seamlessly
integrated into the existing platform, offering Messenger as a more
financially affordable method in which mothers, nurses, and child health
workers can access additional content and services.
With 900 million users, Messenger is one
of the most-used chat apps on the planet with more than 11,000 bots
added since the platform launched in April.
Messenger allows for larger character
limits than SMS and none of the time-outs of USSD. Users send 60 billion
messages per day using messenger – more than three times the global
daily SMS volume.
“We focus on providing innovative and
scalable solutions for those in need of access to information in low
income countries by keeping ahead of changing technology as well as the
changing needs of the end user.
“We launched MomConnect in 2014, before
the rise of Messenger. To be relevant with the latest technologies, we
have created a bot to integrate into the platform, as they allow mothers
and health care professionals a cheaper way to access vital maternal
health and HIV information personalised to them directly on their mobile
devices.
“We’re proud to lead their integration into health systems” Praekelt Foundation Founder and CEO, Gustav Praekelt noted.
Currently, MomConnect improves the
supply of maternal health information in South Africa for over 850,000
subscribers. These subscribers will now have access to maternal health
information through Messenger.
Allowing HIV + mothers and those with
high-risk pregnancies to have an alternative platform for receiving
stage-based messages, the bot gives them access to a resource of
information around HIV, pregnancy, delivery and a baby’s first year, as
well as a future helpdesk to offer mothers a platform where they can
have their questions answered by live operators and escalated to health
professional.
Simon de Haan, Chief Engineer at
Praekelt Foundation, noted the benefits of the bot. “Starting with
maternal health care, access to essential information delivered via
Messenger poses a fundamental shift in how personal health services are
delivered at national scale in emerging markets.
“Our maternal health services are made
possible by our open-source Junebug integration for Messenger and we are
excited about the potential this open-source release creates for the
wider health and technology industry.”
Over the course of the 5 day conference
in Durban, participants will be able to experience the value of the bot
first hand by signing up for messages and having them delivered in an
accelerated schedule via the messenger set up for MomConnect.
To experience the service, a user can
like MomConnect’s Facebook page. Praekelt Foundation plans to roll out
the technology to its existing suites in other African countries, which
have replicated the MomConnect model, including Hello Mama in Nigeria
and Family Connect in Uganda.
