Building a life in a new place as a migrant or refugee is no easy feat. Housing and employment, new and unfamiliar cultural norms, legal and visa requirements – these are some of the hurdles that new arrivals to Victoria face. For members of migrant and refugee communities that do not speak English or have literacy difficulties, these same challenges can be even more complex. It’s this practical but very real issue that Swinburne University is tackling head on with its groundbreaking CommUnity AI: AI-powered Multilingual Document Support for Community Empowerment project.
CommUnity AI is an AI-powered multilingual chatbot designed to help migrant communities understand and act on important, formal documents, such as housing and health letters and government correspondence. Users will be able to upload a photo or PDF of any official document and have it instantly interpreted, summarised in plain English, translated into the user’s preferred language and packaged with clear advice on actionable next steps. Now, thanks to a $40,000 grant from Telematics Trust, Swinburne is closer than ever to rolling out CommUnity AI so that it can help support some of Victoria’s newest, most diverse and most disadvantaged communities.
Critical help for vulnerable communities
Census data shows that over 285,000 people in Victoria who speak a language other than English at home have difficulty speaking English. The impact this kind of language barrier can have on daily life is hard to overstate. From misunderstanding the nuances of simple interactions to lost opportunities and less social integration, the end result is a more isolated and vulnerable section of our society. For migrants and refugees, equal access to services is critical for their social and economic participation, especially in the first weeks and months after their arrival.
This is why CommUnity AI is focused on addressing communications and access barriers so that migrant and refugee communities can access essential services such as housing, healthcare, education and employment. Unlike existing translation tools that provide only literal translations and require high digital literacy, CommUnity AI chatbot combines advanced document recognition (OCR), natural language processing, and real-time multilingual translation to not only translate but also interpret and explain the meaning of complex documents.
By leveraging the latest advances in AI and language models, Swinburne is ensuring that the impact and accessibility of CommUnity AI chatbot is maximised for the benefit of Victoria’s diverse communities.
Designed with and for users
Key to CommUnity AI’s has been co-designing the tool with the same communities who will use it. To help, Swinburne partnered with Africause, a leading not-for-profit community organisation that helps support African-Australian migrants and refugees.
Africause’s network reaches into migrant communities and supports end-user consultation during the design process, to ensure that the CommUnity AI chatbot is usable, accurate and fit for purpose.
Dr. Adi Prananto, Senior Information Systems Lecturer at Swinburne University, said:
“The Telematics Trust grant has played a critical role in accelerating the development of CommUnity AI. The funding enabled us to progress rapidly through multiple build iterations, resulting in a second completed proof-of-concept that has now been demonstrated to Africause’s CEO, Dr Berhan Ahmed. We are now entering the community consultation phase, where direct community voices will be central to refining and strengthening the solution. This support has allowed us to move from an early prototype to a tangible,demonstrable capability much faster than would otherwise have been possible,and to position the project for meaningful community impact.”
Bringing together people and tech
At its core, CommUnity AI is a project centered on empowering people, and fostering a greater sense of independence and confidence in communities that need it most. It also represents a swathe of pioneering initiatives that demonstrate the application of AI for public good.