Meeting the needs of education in Portugal with our chatbot Sofia

Hello, how can I help? How the Sofia chatbot answers the Education needs in Portugal

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In October 2021, Inetum launched the Sofia chatbot on the Politécnico de Leiria website, which, as the origin of the name Sofia indicates, intends to honor wisdom, science and knowledge. This period coincided with the start of the new academic year at the academic teaching institution, during which doubts about applications, enrollment and tuition fees were a constant reality. There was, therefore, no better (and more challenging) time to go ahead with the deployment.

The goal was clear from the start: to help the Polytechnic of Leiria answer to the students' questions faster, given the high volume of questions placed in different channels, which the institution was unable to respond to. It was based on this mission that Inetum and the Polytechnic set out to take Education further in Portugal.

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AI & Machine Learning: the pillars of this project

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What made it possible to implement a chatbot using artificial intelligence and machine learning? The answer lies on three technologies: BotFoundry, the content management solution for chatbots developed by Inetum, services from Microsoft Azure and LUIS.

In addition, all the written content of the chatbot involved rewriting content adapting it to a conversation flow logic, with a strong focus on UX/UI. It is precisely the content configured in BotFoundry that allows the Sofia chatbot to answer questions about a wide range of topics, including scholarships and student residences.

Finding the Sofia chatbot is easy, just go to the Polytechnic of Leiria website, click on the yellow icon at the bottom of the screen and write your questions. Then, it is up to the chatbot to understand the questions asked by users, using natural language processing, provided by Microsoft's cognitive services. This process is divided into two phases: initially, the chatbot identifies the intent of the question, that is, the most general objective, and then proceeds to the analysis of the entities, which allows the identification of the more specific themes of the conversation. And voila! The bot understands the question and answers within seconds.

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What does the future hold?

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Together with the Politécnico de Leiria, Inetum remains committed to the evolution and growth of the chatbot, which implies continuous training, so that the tool can increasingly understand a greater number of topics from students. With our eyes set on the future, the development of a teaching chatbot is being considered and analyzed, a pioneering solution that aims to support students with their specific questions related to teaching subjects or processes that involve more interaction with teachers.