Despite the unprecedented economic crisis, Business Butler, thanks to its SMART Partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University, has continued to thrive under the lockdown restrictions.
Working remotely has not fazed this innovative digital company and has in fact used it as an opportunity to make great advancements in developing an intelligent business chatbot as part of its SMART Partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University.
SMART Partnerships are funded by the Welsh Government and they offer financial support to innovative collaboration projects that need a range of expertise to succeed. This support is instrumental in helping to increase the capacity and capabilities of Welsh businesses to develop R&D activities by connecting them with research organisations and an associate to work on a specific project.
The chatbot uses a recommender approach which guides the user through a series of defined questions to deliver appropriate outcomes and advice. The funding chatbot also includes a ‘find funding facility’ which allows users to identify relevant forms of business funding including grants, debt and equity funding solutions.
The chatbot will also offer to book an appointment with an appropriate expert from the Business Butler panel or point the user in the direction of other online sources for help and support.
The pioneering work has not gone unnoticed in the tech sector and Business Butler has been invited to present a webinar that demonstrates the chatbot at the inaugural Wales Tech Week which is being hosted from the 13th to 17th of July.
The webinar is titled “An Artificial Intelligence Powered Chatbot Serving Business with Vetted Information.” Hosting the webinar is Bhupinder Sidhu, Founder and CEO of Business Butler, along with Ben Hayes, who is a Business Butler Software Developer and Research Student at Cardiff Metropolitan University and Dr Simon Thorne, Senior Lecturer in Computing and Information Systems at Cardiff Metropolitan University.
Bhupinder Sidhu is proud that Business Butler is to be part of such an important event and emphasises the role the SMART Partnership has played in the development of the chatbot:
“We feel privileged to have been invited to present our webinar at the very first Wales Tech Week. The importance of our funding chatbot for businesses takes on even greater significance in the current economic climate when receiving the correct funding expeditiously can make the difference between being able to continue trading or not.
“To help make our idea of a chatbot a reality we knew we needed quality technical expertise, so we approached Cardiff Metropolitan University to be our Research Organisation partner. Together we developed a SMART Partnership application which has led to real technical advancements within Business Butler and in our understanding of how AI can be used to benefit business.”
