Virus Emoji Bot

Inspiration

Are you currently abroad and worried that you are not informed about the most recent rules and regulations in your local area regarding the current COVID-19 situation due to a language barrier?

Do you worry about making travel plans and having the most up to date information regarding restrictions even for 2021?

What it does

Our Virus Emoji Bot is a chatbot that works with popular messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook. It communicates with users as if it was another contact, giving updates regarding the most relevant regulations based on the user’s location. Responses are given in the form of numbers, maps and emojis.

Daily updates would address the situation in the users location, for example what type of businesses are open such as grocery stores, bakeries or hairdressers using the relevant emojis.

In the event of an emergency situation such as a lockdown in the users area, a message will be sent in the chat.

For the future, users will be able to ask the bot regarding travel restrictions by typing the airplane emoji and the appropriate flag with a question mark to ask the bot whether travel is permitted to that country. They will receive the appropriate emoji response if a flight is allowed and if not a soonest estimated date of when travel to that country would be possible.

How We built it

We developed a concept based on group ideation, feedback from our survey and deep discussions regarding use cases and our users needs.

Considering the overload of information and updates regarding rules and regulations on the web in addition to the struggle for immigrants and seasonal workers to understand the rules and regulations in the countries they are currently located due to a language barrier, we determined that a chatbot using a language that is understandable globally would be a solution for users to avoid violation of rules and in some cases criminal acts. Additionally providing clarity and feelings of ease for those traveling in the future once borders reopen.

We designed a prototype, however to realize this idea we would need to integrate with other messaging applications.

Challenges we ran into

Throughout this hackathon we have had several members come and go and a myriad of ideas. We started with an initial idea however we decided based on our skill level the idea would be too complex to realize within the weekend. The next solution we came up with, we quickly realized already exists. We needed to be very agile, openminded and devoted throughout this entire process.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have collaborated with several different people from all over the world who were also looking to support in such difficult times and for determining a solution that could potentially support the huge number of labor immigrants and seasonal workers trapped in another country to avoid violation of rules and in some cases criminal acts. Additionally providing clarity and feelings of ease for those traveling in the future once borders reopen and travel is permitted.

What we learned

What we are capable of and gained connections and ideas that will last beyond this event.

What's next for Virus Emoji Bot

If the idea is recognized as a viable solution, the next step would be to proceed to phase 2 of the hackathon, develop the APi and at the same time reach out to companies with the most used messenger apps.