LiSwati creates study bot
MBABANE – Mongi Dlamini, a liSwati has created a bot app known as ‘Coolest Teacher’ to help students acquire information easily for their studies.
An internet bot is a software application that runs automated tasks over the internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity on the internet, such as messaging, on a large scale.
It also answers any question about any related topic or subMects, such as History, *eography and Mathematics.
The application was created by Mongi Dlamini who is a photographer and musician.
Dlamini shared with this publication that the bot was inspired by the idea of helping those pupils and students in need.
“Looking around, I saw how so many people are suffering financially. Parents can hardly afford school fees, let alone extra classes for children who need extra one-on-one help outside of the classroom.
Inspiration
“So my inspiration came from the desire to help those who are in need of educational assistance at no cost at all to afford them ‘a teacher in their pocket’ at their convenience as the bot has been programmed with a vast knowledge base that provides accurate and efficient answers to a wide range of questions and inquiries,´ Dlamini said.
He went on to share that the bot was also inspired by the difficulty posed by some search engines when asking a simple question.
“Another thing that inspired the bot is how other search engines make it difficult to conduct research efficiently. For example, when you ask *oogle a specific question about a topic, it gives you over a million results, and you have to waste your time going through and filtering them before you find what you are looking for.
“The bot, on the other hand, is very accurate, gets straight to the point, and saves one a lot of time and data,´ Dlamini added.
Intelligence
:hen probed on how the application works, he narrated that it uses artificial intelligence to engage the user in a conversation.
“This education bot is essentially a computer programme that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to stimulate a conversation with the student. An interested user will simply type in the link attached to the article, then they can ask the bot any question on literally any topic, and the bot will respond as accurately and quickly as possible. It may use a variety of techniques to engage with the user.
“It understands text or voice-based interactions, visual aids, qui]]es, and more. In a nutshell, the bot is an educational power tool for people who want to learn. It is basically a teacher in your pocket,´ Dlamini said.
Objectives
:hen asked what some of the obMectives are that he wishes to achieve with the bot, he shared that he wants to offer academic assistance to students.
“The obMective is to provide accurate, helpful, and creative information in a way that is cost and time-efficient to students who need any type of educational assistance. 8ltimately, it is designed to make pupils and students’ lives easier by offering solutions to problems as a fun and engaging conversational partner and teacher,´ Dlamini said.