The creation of the first AI digital state aid assistant in the region begins
Deputy Prime Minister in charge of economic affairs, coordination of economic departments and investments, Fatmir Bitiqi, directors of the Fund for Innovations and Technology Development, Kosta Petrov, of the Directorate for Technological Industrial Development Zones, Jovan Despotovski and the Agency for Foreign Investments and Promotion of Export, Dejan Pavleski, attended the presentation of the concept for creating the first AI (artificial intelligence) digital state aid assistant in the region, which was selected as the best in the public call announced by FITD, which was presented by the company representative which will implement the project, the domestic IT company, CodeWell.
The project, called “CodeWell AI Digital Assistant” based on artificial intelligence, was evaluated in a competition of three projects, as the most innovative idea, to create a digital assistant based on artificial intelligence, which will be used for state aid programs, and will be implemented in the Agency for Foreign Investments and Export Promotion, the Directorate for Technological Industrial Development Zones and the Fund for Innovations and Technology Development. The funds for the realization of this project, in the total amount of 9 million denars are provided from the budget of the Fund and represent 100% support of the value of the project.
Deputy Prime Minister Bytyqi and directors Petrov, Despotovski and Pavleski unanimously agreed that this digital tool will further improve the transparency of institutions and facilitate communication and access to information of domestic and foreign companies and investors on state aid measures.
The digital assistant based on artificial intelligence will be able to provide the necessary services in three languages: Macedonian (Cyrillic and Latin), Albanian and English at the human level, and citizens and potential foreign investors will be able to talk to the assistant by exchanging text messages, in any of these three languages. It will be available 24/7 and will be able to serve an unlimited number of users at the same time. It will be available online, on Facebook, Messenger and Viber. That way it will be equally good for those users who are not so skilled with technology because all they have to do is ask what is of interest to them without leaving their favourite electronic communication application they are already using.
It is expected that the introduction of the digital AI assistant will automate up to 80% of all interactions with users, which will contribute to great savings of resources, proactive communication with citizens, reducing congestion in institutions, as well as more efficient and effective processes, services and increase of employee productivity.
According to the public call, the implementation of the project can last for a total of 24 months: 12 months for development and implementation and 12 months for maintenance and upgrading.
The attendees agreed that the use of artificial intelligence for various services and products is particularly important and concluded that such digital AI assistants in many countries are already the present, not the future.
The Director of FITD, Kosta Petrov, in the direction of the activities implemented by the Fund in support of digitalization, informed that the digitization of the files of the Institute for Macedonian Language “Krste Misirkov” will begin soon, and in 2022 activities are already planned in the field of AI and support for digitalization in various industries.
The company that will implement the project, CodeWell (CodeWell AI – www.codewell.ai) is part of a series of Conversational AI technologies, which are ready to revolutionize the office work in a way that robots have revolutionized production and has a rich portfolio of projects related to information and communication tools and applications, as well as artificial intelligence.
At the grand finale of the „Spotlight 2021″ competition, a leading program in Central and Eastern Europe dedicated to high-growth technology startups organized by „How to Web”, held on November 24, the Macedonian startup CodeWell won second place as a major award for the success of their technology.