On Tuesday 9 February, the School hosted a panel of artificial intelligence (AI) education experts and Intel dignitaries to award AI4Youth certificates to five boys from Habs for their project HabsBoys Chatbot. The students involved in the project were Noah (11S2), Ari (11H1), Yash (11R2), Alex (9C1) and Keshav Gupta (OH 2020). 

The Habs team presented the detail of the project to a judging panel consisting of: Stuart Walker (Head of Education UK & Ireland at Intel Corporation), Nirosha Holton (Associate Lecturer & Academic Mentor University of Exeter), Marisa Connolly Álvarez (Education Sales Specialist, UK & Ireland Product Business Fujitsu), and Tim Barrett (STEM Ambassador and Wearable Tech Developer at Intel).

They received great compliments from all who attended, and as such, Anshul Sonak, Intel Principal Engineer for their Digital Readiness Partnership Program, said: 'Intel are trying to democratise and demystify AI and we are so proud of Habs Boys for being the first ambassadors in this country to use our resources and create this real world beneficial project.'

The aim of this project, inspired by Keshav Gupta (OH 2020) was to create an AI chatbot where a user would be able to ask questions on a vast array of topics and the system would respond in a manner consistent with the message of the Dada Bhagwan Foundation. The foundation has the goal of spreading peace, harmony & ultimate bliss to mankind, through the science of self realisation.

Keshav talked about his struggle with mental health and how he wanted to give back to the organisation had been extremely helpful to him.  Keshav said: 'I wanted to create a chatbot so that more people would be able to take advantage of the organisation that was so helpful for me.'

The followers of Dada Bhagwan foundation are from all around the world, but the target audience are users over 12 years old. This chatbot can be easily integrated and adapted for various other groups, companies and organisations – most importantly, it is the about the scalability of this chatbot – and the students involved have plenty of ideas for expanding to a mobile app.

Recognising that the chatbot enhances and digitally transforms the user experience for all the followers, the students are keen to get feedback from the users and continue to develop the project over the next year as part of the thriving Computing Society activities at Habs. Keshav said: 'I believe it engages the users, and optimises their journey through the Dada Bhagwan website.'

This could in the future be the tool to help users find out more about local events, the quote of the day, or even an in-depth understanding for a specific topic, centralising all the followers onto one platform, where they can be recommended videos and books based on their interests.

Both the School and Intel are looking forward to seeing how this project develops and the Habs team and the School are grateful for the ongoing support from Intel for this and other projects.