Heena Sharma Blog

  Common Services Centers (CSC) on Thursday launched a WhatsApp chatbot for people to access its digital literacy services and resources. Aimed to bridge the digital divide and spur rural entrepreneurship, the service provides access to information related to course modules of government flagship programmes like the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA) and the Digital Beti initiative in English, Hindi and seven other regional languages. To access the service, people need to send a “Namaste” at CSC Academy’s official WhatsApp account +91-9999189321. The Chatbot provides access to details and course modules of flagship programmes. Through the 'Digital Beti' initiative, the government aims to train 5,000 rural entrepreneurs on digital literacy in over 3,000 villages across 10 Indian states. The PMGDisha initiative focuses on making at least 40 per cent rural households digitally literate. Read More

International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) on Thursday launched the Hindi version of its global fact-checking Covid-19 chatbot for WhatsApp in India. The Hindi chatbot sources its content from Vishvas News, Fact Crescendo, India Today, Newschecker, Boom Fact Check, News Mobile and The Quint. The database available in Hindi has started with more than 250 fact-checks and will be updated daily. The IFCN's chatbot is a free to use service on WhatsApp. To enable the chatbot, user need to save +1 (727) 2912606 as a contact number. To initiate the fact check process, user need to open the chat and send a message " नमस्ते " to get the Hindi bot started. Alternatively, users can click here to start the conversation. Read More

The use of virtual assistants in the workplace is growing manifold with 25 per cent of digital workers likely to use a virtual employee assistant daily by 2021, as against less than 2 per cent in 2019, said a global research and advisory firm. According to a report by Gartner, Inc, the contact centre was the pilot and testing ground for many adopters of virtual assistants (VAs), but with the democratisation of artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of accurate and clever conversational user interfaces (UIs), different types of VA have arisen: virtual personal assistants (VPAs), virtual customer assistants (VCAs) and virtual employee assistants (VEAs). We expect VEAs to be used by an increasing number of organisations over the next three years, said Annette Jump, senior director at Gartner. "Industries such as insurance and financial services are showing strong interest in piloting VEAs internally. We've also witnessed VAs being used in IT, customer servic