Truthful, reliable and up-to-date information on emergency, quarantine and coronavirus from official sources is crucial today. In order to facilitate the provision of such information to the public an automated conversation robot called ViLTė was installed at www.koronastop.lt. This is a new way to get information quickly and at any time during the day, which is particularly relevant when the number of coronavirus cases is increasing and more people are turning to helplines on a wide range of issues in the country. This virtual conversation robot, working with the help of artificial intelligence, can already understand and provide official and reliable answers in Lithuanian and English to thousands of citizens’ questions about coronavirus, travel restrictions, public support for business and many others.
The virtual conversation robot is starting activities on the Government’s website www.koronastop.lt, which provides the most relevant information on the new coronavirus spread in Lithuania.
‘Despite the fact that ViLTė is a very new solution, it is “learning” rapidly with the help of artificial intelligence; the more questions are asked, the smarter it is. Over time, it will be able to provide more and more reliable answers to the citizens’ questions. So we hope to get reach of an increasingly larger public this way. We are pleased to be first to test this kind of solution and hope that it will also encourage other institutions to choose similar ways,’ says Giedrius Surplys, Head of the Public Information Group.
The introduction of this virtual conversation robot in the public sector was initiated by the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation. ‘Digital transformation is changing the rules of the game both in business and the public sector. Today’s excellent example of this is ViLTė, which emerged during a hackathon and continues to be developed through cooperation between the public sector and start-up teams,’ said Elijus Čivilis, Vice-Minister of the Economy and Innovation.
The ViLTė solution was worked out during the Hack the Crisis hackathon, co-organised by a GovTech team from the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA); it was evaluated by the commission as one of the best hackathon solutions. The technical implementation of this idea was carried out by the Information Society Development Committee in cooperation with the team of creators of the ViLTė robot.
For the most important information on coronavirus see www.koronastop.lt.
For more information on the conversation robot see viltebot.com