Victorian Government launches Australian first multi-lingual chatbot

The Victorian Government has deployed AskVic, a Whatsapp chatbot designed for culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities to access information in eight languages.

The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing (DFFH) developed the tool in partnership with ThinkHQ, in order to break down language barriers and get essential information to multicultural communities, faster.

AskVic provides information in Hindi, Arabic, Vietnamese, Turkish, Punjabi, Spanish, Filipino (Tagalog) and English, and while it was designed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, its potential use case expands to support migrant groups in participating in the state.

The tool uses open source technology including the Rasa Conversational AI, and the BotFront authoring platform to facilitate multilingual content management.

Victorians can use the chatbot to ask questions about Covid-19 restrictions, support and vaccinations, jobs and careers, business, housing, transport, social support, education, law and justice.

Users will need to have a WhatsApp account and the WhatsApp application on a mobile or device.

To begin the conversation users need to add +61 480 032 278 to their phone’s contact list and text 'hello' via WhatsApp. AskVic will then prompt the user with questions to solve their query.

According to Think HQ founder and managing director Jen Sharpe, “It’s wonderful to see that innovation combined with a commitment to positive social impact and audience inclusion, has produced such an exciting Australian first. Think HQ will always seek partners whose lens is broad enough to challenge the traditional methods of reaching audiences because we are committed to creating products and channels that reach all Australians.”

Oliver Laude, Think HQ’s head of digital said that the result balances human-centred design, content, cultural relevance and sophisticated technology.

“The AskVic WhatsApp chatbot will provide essential information to audiences that are too often forgotten from traditional communications in Australia. We are proud to have delivered an innovative technical solution built with users to reflect all the cultural and linguistic nuances,” he said.