My name is Vishnu prasad and I would like to present the paper titled a hybrid multi-modal
system for conducting virtual workshops using interactive voice response and the whatsapp
business API. The platform was designed and developed during the lockdown
here in india the aim was to develop a virtual training platform for carton farmers as lockdown
restricted mobility among communities. Taking into the account of the growing internet penetration
and availability of cheap data plans, we combined IVR, which is often used to disseminate and collect
information from the bottom of the pyramid communities as well as WhatsApp business API for users with
access to internet connectivity and accustomed to richer content environment
FOr IVR at fixed intervals, we placed our outbound calls to 401 pre-selected farmers chosen by local
partners. Training modules consisted of dialogue between two farmers where the narrator would
periodically interrupt the dialogue and address the users with questions they could answer by
pressing one or two on their phone. We felt this for format was worth exploring as earlier IVR
based deployments have taken the form of either a tutorial followed by questions or directly asking
questions with relevant parts of the tutorial being played to those that answered incorrectly.
Incorrect answers would result in call getting disconnected and a message to try again during
the next randomly initiated call. At the end of the interaction permission was asked to reach out
to the user via whatsapp if permission was granted a message would be sent via whatsapp
informing them of the insurance coverage they have earned along with the option of earning additional
coverage for submitting assignments such as a photo of their field or the fertilizer they use.
Similarly integrating the WhatsApp element into the intervention was inspired by our
needs assessment survey that showed a majority of pre-selected users actively used the app. According
to the rules of whatsapp business api any reply to a user is free for 24 hours from the last message
they are sent to our bot. Initiating a message to a user outside 24-hour window cost USD 0.005
per message and also requires the message to be pre-approved by Facebook. We just designed our
intervention such that any message sent to our bot from pre-selected users would trigger the
same training module that was given over IVR. In case the user had already completed the module,
they were informed of the amount they have earned and pending assignments they need to submit.
To bypass literacy barriers the module was delivered both as an audio recording and in the text of
local language spoken in the region. A 24-hour cooldown period applied to the users incorrectly
answered a question. Unlike our past deployment on IVR we put forth
a delayed incentive scheme as opposed to mobile time pop-ups, which offer instant
gratification to users. We presented a personalized insurance scheme to farmers where they could
earn coverage upon successful completion of each module and also submitting assignments to WhatsApp.
Those users without a smartphone could submit their assignments through their friends and
families members and smartphones by entering their phone number. We also made sure that both IVR and
WhatsApp had the same number so there was no scope for confusion or mixup. At the end of
the intervention the combined insurance package was given to the farmer based on how much they
have earned. The deployment was carried out from September 5th to 3rd October 2020 for 29 days in
rural Maharashtra. The training modules consisted of oil management pest control fertilizers and
pesticides. Even though no in-person training sessions or meetings were conducted
we recruited community elders who could champion the intervention and get other users to seriously
partake in the deployment. Apart from the community elders four team members were involved in seeding
effort and outreach to users. Although past deployment had an inbound calling system over IVR
through missed call along with referrals. We had to redesign our system keeping in mind the social
distance norms and thus start to outbound calls our IVR which minimizes scope of other users
answering the questions. A total of 122 and 54 unique numbers attempted the quiz over IVR and
WhatsApp respectively in terms of the assignment. We received 19 in total. a lot of positive as
well as negative feedback were received during the intervention period some of which we have
listed in the presentation during the course of deployment many lessons were learned including
to leverage functionalities of rich data environment that different platforms offered.
we hastily reused the record content for IVR and WhatsApp as well. Instead we could have
explored the possibility of using stickers, emojis, memes and short video recordings that could have
offered users a more rich experience. The outbound system set up for IVR which limited the user's
flexibility in using the system at their own will could have impacted the usage as well. In future
we would also like to introduce referrals over whatsapp in order to scale the project.
Thank you for listening and if you have any doubts please feel free to reach out, Thank you again.