Citizen Chatbot (rus)
Chatbots are an effective and rapidly developing tool in the civic engagement market: understandable conversational language and low internet traffic consumption allow applications to increase the potential audience reach. The chatbot "What does Troitsk want?", developed by KB Strelka, became one of the first crowdfunding platforms of this type in Russia for collecting ideas and proposals on urban development issues.
Workshop participants will analyze the request of citizens for caring about their own physical, mental, and social health and create their own chatbot within the Urban Health approach. The British platform Babylon already listens to complaints and gives recommendations for the treatment of diseases - from asthma to insomnia, the Irish Woebot replaces a psychotherapist, best friend, and mother's shoulder, and the Norwegian chatbot Differ helps shy students meet peers and find answers to any university questions.
In two days, participants will:
- dive into the modern urban agenda;
- get acquainted with the basics of civic tech;
- explore the possibilities of chatbots for solving urban problems;
- learn about the risks and peculiarities of dialogue systems;
- understand the architecture of the Telegram API.
The practical task of the workshop will be to create a dialogue environment with subsequent programming and launching of a working chatbot on Telegram and attracting the widest possible audience.
The workshop will be useful for architects, analysts, and researchers interested in modern urban issues and digital technologies. Participants must have knowledge of Python, HTTP, and preferably API.