UTANO Hybrid Information Dissemination Service (UIDS)

A hybrid all-social media compatible AI based Chatbot to wipe out disease misinformation on a global level. It is a Counter-misinformation Tool (CMT) This will be the first ever Chatbot available on WhatsApp, Facebook, SMS, Line, Telegram, disseminating the same information at the same time; during early and mid outbreaks.

Bongani Mwonzora (Executive Director and Developer)

bongani.m.mwonzora@gmail.com

Misinformation and disinformation pose detrimental effects as we shall explore below. A study postulated in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene during the peak of the covid19 pandemic before the South African variant estimates that about 5,800 people were admitted to hospitals due to false information. Many died from drinking methanol or alcohol-based cleaning products and concoctions. They wrongly believing the products to be a cure for the virus. It is quite pathetic to say in lighter terms to see human beings succumb to such as the survival instinct creeps in. According to the BBC article of 12 August 2020, 800 people had been estimated to have been dead within the twenty-fifth percentile of the year due to misinformation. 

Many of the victims had sheepishly followed advice resembling "credible" medical information - such as eating unreasonably huge amounts of garlic or ingesting large quantities of vitamins - so as to methodically shield, mitigate and prevent infection, the writer postulates. Others gulped substances such as cow urine. It is quite unequivocal that these actions all had "potentially detrimental implications" on their health, the situation becoming even more deplorable as many had pre-existing medical conditions such as asthma, ulcers and hypertension. In other words this was proverbially leaping from the frying pan into the fire all due to misinformation.

Let's zoom to the status quo right now as vaccines emerge. The probability is quite high that anti-vaccine campaigners will come up with conspiracy theories to dissuade people from protecting themselves . Even though big social media Multinational Corporations have done and are still doing a great job in removing or labelling misleading information about the vaccines, recent polling in the United States revealed that 28% of Americans believe that Bill Gates wants to use vaccines to implant microchips in people. "The achievement of an effective coronavirus vaccine could be completely undermined by misinformation", doctors told BBC's anti-disinformation team.

And finally in a world where mental health is stereotyped, most men are afraid to go for cancelling and this has resulted in many men and boys succumbing to suicide. Compared to women, men are three times more likely to die by suicide in Australia and 3.5 times more likely in the US. Therefore mental health is a "shadow pandemic" so the Application caters for that in its Mental Health category.

The target audience is first of all my country, then we will run pilots in the neighboring countries then regional till we get to continental level. 

One does not need to go to the experts to ask about a disease. Its a Utopia where everything is based on the chip. This cuts consultation costs and costs of buying magazines and newspapers to only data costs for them to access this information at a charge of $0.00 in the comfort of your home or workplace. The advantage of this is that we are transitioning to the new normal and the new normal is teleworking and telehealth. The significance of this is that for example in the context of Covid as one goes to make enquiries about symptoms they may potentially spread it along the way to the centres. They can do self inferences and self diagnostics based on the guidelines and clues. Thereafter they can self isolate.
One of the features is the Covid vaccination and isolation centres and their addresses and contacts. This will be customizable by country and region by means of legally seeking their databases which WHO probably can have in terms of testing and vaccination centres. It is very user friendly because these are basically what people use everyday therefore there are no adjustment problems.

It provides healthcare information, which is part of free medical services. Patient awareness is such an important thing and It is part of the cycle of diagnosis and treatment. When responding to global emergencies the first thing is to look at the information side of it so as to get rid of panic and despondency in the common citizenry. 

In country where mental health is stereotyped and seeking treatment is largely considered selfish or exotic, we have come up with Utano Digital Health to rewrite the status quo. Mental health service centres in Zimbabwe are centralised i.e. there are only in the major cities, contrary to the fact that the majority of the country’s population is based in the rural areas and smaller urban centres. This is where we come in to bridge the gap. With the Utano chatbot, we seek to make these essential mental health
services available to every Zimbabwean who has a cellphone on the go. With our chatbot we seek to avail information about this virus to all users despite geographical location. With the aid of our built in directory, we want to make contact with
health personnel at the designated Covid19 centres much easier. The nature of this virus enabled the widespread of fake news and inauthentic information to the people especially in a country like ours. It is
at this point that our news feature comes in. Through this feature we will disseminate official news and statistics about the pandemic.
We have also noted that there are quite a number of other infections which are endemic to Zimbabwe such as malaria, cholera and typhoid. These are responsible for claiming a large number of lives each year. Since these diseases are very prevalent and are fatal, we seek to disburse preventative measures, domestic remedies, treatment solutions and where to access the needed healthcare in time and curb the high annual death toll. In the above explanation, Zimbabwe represents other developing countries across the globe and they are the primary targets.

Our mission is to democratise access to mental health services using the power of technology and social media. Zimbabwe as an emerging economy happens to be at high risk of infection and mortality as a result of
the Covid19 pandemic which we are currently facing. Our solution will create tangible impact for Zimbabweans first then Southern Africa and we aim for global impact. As explored earlier, we are basically having everyone connected so that in case of an emergency, we are on the loop and we start sending updates and information to every targeted member. 

We are creating employment because every reached nation will have representatives and employees so that they can have closer monitoring. It is empowering citizens to be resilient and discern between propaganda and the reliable information that we will be providing.

These are our plans of upscale. 

We hope to have a constant 5% user increase every quartile per annum and over the next 3 years we will hope to have reached every nation in Sub Saharan Africa, then We move to Africa as a whole continent. After this we will then begin to target other developing countries outside Africa because they are the most vulnerable. 

This is our strategy. By October 2022 we would have finished with two more amazing features: Language translators. One of the setbacks with our solution is that it only operates in English. It needs to offer solutions in other countries. The next thing is to install and program Natural Language Understanding (NLU) so that users can send audios or voice note enquiries. Afterwards it can also respond using the same voice note. This is for the illiterate. We are doing all this to ensure optimal inclusivity.

In every 3 months there should at least be a 5% increase in user turnout.

By the end of 3 years, that is 2024, we should have reached at least all of the sub-Saharan African countries. We will use Graphs produced by the Dialogflow console development feature. We measure the number of people that die due to misinformation. It should decrease by not less than 80% in the next 3 years.

Next year we will use analytical graphs to measure user turnout. These are on the sandbox for Twilio. We will also conduct surveys which will be on our Facebook and instagram pages as well as the press. By partnering with WHO and the Ministry of health and Child Care of Zimbabwe and other target nations, we will then compile statistical data via our research department to monitor how many people are still dying due to misinformation. We will also use a tool to measure the misinformation indexes of target nations. This is by means of Mathematical formulae where we will do a lot of averaging based on fake news as it comes within a specific period of time and the different versions of the same narrative peddled on social media to come up with the misinformation index. In other words, misinformation indexes should decrease significantly and users should gain more confidence in our applications as the main sources of information during the pandemic.

First of all Financial problems. We don't have enough finances to finance our enterprise therefore it may be difficult to bulldoze our way through. So if we apply to trinity, it will link us to potential investors, who will help us establish financial muscle. We will also be doing income generating projects such as advertising and leads. this is in the budget attached below at the end of this section. We are also probably going to encounter some legal frustrations along the way as our target countries have very different legal structures and in terms of registration we would need to be have what we call legal correctness. To solve this, we are hoping to partner with other organisations which are part and parcel of the partners of Trinity for example the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which operates widely in sub-Saharan Africa. When we try to reach these countries as their affiliate, we will have an upper-hand.

International Model United Nations (Ambassador)

Shasha Network (Fellow) 

Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship connect '21 (Disruptors Category)

Yale Young Global Scholars Connect '21

United World Colleges

Ignite Youth Organisation

Associate Editor

Ray of Hope

Toastmasters International

The Trinity Challenge is an adapter to a great pool of opportunities, vast networks and infinite connections to external investors, funders, experts and business tycoons. The Trinity challenge will help me first of all with the funding for our startup to balloon and increase areas of coverage. In my country Zimbabwe, there is lack of investors and organizational support to cushion cottage/sunrise industries. The explanation to this can be that there is inaccessibility to key resources especially technological ones, a relatively unstable currency and lack of sufficient infrastructure to act as collateral when outsourcing funding. With this in mind, Trinity will chip in with a vast expanse of connections and enough funds to make this startup come to life. Apart from just funding and connections, I get access to experts who are skilled in Data Analytics and other tech infrastructure.  On another note, the credibility that will come with being associated with the Trinity challenge is far greater than winning the prize itself.

WHO International,

Higherlife Foundation,

Tony Elumelu Foundation,

Patrice Motsepe 

I would like to partner with them firstly through mutual partnerships. I'll explain. When investor X is a close affiliate to Z, but also a close affiliate to Y, then Z and Y have a mutual connection. So I will utilise the connections that the Trinity challenge has. Apart from establishing my own independent connections, I will also refer more youths on my side who have very blazing ideas to join the network so as to expand and build sustainability. This is so that they can build resilient health infrastructure in their societies so as to maximise Marginal Societal Benefit.