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ParentCoach is being pursued by a consortium of five institutions, with proven experience in etnographic fieldwork, Participatory Design, chatbot development, mHealth, and business, which will be essential for creating a chatbot product to be used in Portugal and South Africa. The project partners are:
Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS [coordinator] (AICOS) is an applied research centre from Portugal focused on supporting industry through research- and technology-based innovation, namely in the healthcare sector. The centre has a strong track record of co-designing technologies to support chronic condition monitoring and self-care. The experience of designing self-care technologies is leveraged in this project to support parents in learning to care for the health and wellness of their children. Main research areas of AICOS are Human-Centred Design, Artificial Intelligence, and Cyber-physical systems. https://www.aicos.fraunhofer.pt
Wits Health Consortium (WHC) is a wholly owned company of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. In its two decades of operating, WHC has established a world-wide reputation for responsibly managing sponsor and commercially funded activities worth over USD72 million annually. WHC manages around 22% of the University’s total income, with funding derived from leading international and domestic agencies, institutes, foundations, and donors. These include the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Global Fund, Clinical Laboratory Services (CLS), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Wits Clinical Research and other sponsors. WHC seeks to provide a fertile breeding ground for globally influential initiatives and to establish itself as key coordinators linking specialist researchers with some of the world’s top donors, sponsors, and philanthropists. WHC aims to support researchers to grow their sphere of influence and form strategic alignments to expand their research beyond South Africa, to the benefit of other universities in Africa and to enhance lives around the world through the important work that WHC supports. https://www.witshealth.co.za/
AURORA Tech AI (AURORA) is a company from Portugal that has developed and deployed Aurora, a chatbot to support parents in learning about the health and wellbeing of their children. The institution has been working with Portuguese parents, both using the chatbot and through direct parent counseling, and has evidence-based recommendations to address practical issues of parents. AURORA will lead the development, market research, and business planning in ParentCoach. http://auroratechai.com/pt/familia/
University of Cape Town (UCT) is a public research university which was founded in 1829 South Africa. The university ranks first in Africa in all rankings and the Department of Computer Science is internationally recognized for their work on mobile technologies to support people in developing countries. UCT brings in-depth experience in planning and conducting participatory research and design with diverse audiences, including parents. UCT's team also includes the support from pediatric departments from the university hospitals and clinics. UCT will coordinate fieldwork and pilots in the Cape Town area in ParentCoach. https://www.uct.ac.za/
Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) is a statutory council dedicated to conducting human and social science research. It was established in 1968 by an act of parliament. In 2008, the democratic government of South Africa endorsed the status of the HSRC through Act 17 of 2008. The HSRC conducts and promotes social science and humanities research that is in the public interest. Specifically, our research aims to advance South Africa and Africa’s understanding of and engagement with its social conditions and the particular contexts within which these social conditions occur. The knowledge we generate seeks to contribute to local, regional and global understandings of the human and social conditions of people, and the processes and interventions which will assist in the improvement of their social standing. With this distinct mandate, the Council has become one of South Africa’s leading research institutions. The HSRC aims to be a hub of knowledge production, translation and dissemination for policy makers as well as the broader public with a strong global footprint and well-established strategic partnerships, both in Africa and across the world. http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en
- Nervo Verdezoto, Cardiff University