Post by University of Washington Information School

Two UW iSchool Capstone teams have been working to test and improve an AI-powered chatbot for teens called He@lio. The MSIM students researched teens’ mental health challenges, established safety measures, and tested the tool using human-centered design principles. https://lnkd.in/gFmN6awx Team Insight Innovators (Jaspreet Bhamipuri, Casey Frizzell, Tim Joo and Trudy Xia) and Team Infomaniacs (Rebecca Ko, Amber Lee, Veronica Lee, Ko Ching L. and Saba Ziadlou) trained in AI fundamentals with iSchool faculty and Google experts. Building on a project initiated by the Bellevue Youth Link Program, the teams input hundreds of mental health scenarios into the chatbot – which sometimes brought up past emotions from their own teen years. “But that gives us some passion to put in the project,” Frizzell said. “How can we make this a little bit better for the next generation? How can we make that journey from teen to young adult a little bit smoother?” Working with sponsor Compassion8Innovation.org, with funding from Amazon, the University of Washington Master of Science in Information Management students are revising the chatbot pilot to ensure effectiveness, safety and usability for teens. Learn more about the He@lio Capstone project: https://lnkd.in/gFmN6awx