The WhatsApp bot has now become an important tool for the early learning practitioners, with education resources being housed in a familiar and comfortable space – their own mobile phones. The chatbot is user-friendly, accessible to all, and affordable without taking up too much space. And when the team at Helm say user-friendly, they mean all 11 official languages user-friendly.
Chief Product Officer Ebrahim Vally says, “Too often in South Africa, we think, advertise and write in English, which is a second language for the majority of our population. With a SmartStarter community that stretches throughout the country, we felt it was an absolute must to build a bot that speaks all 11 official languages.”
Nomsa Muthaphuli, Chief Operations Officer at SmartStart, says life has become easier for its under-resourced early learning practitioners. “We underestimate how difficult it can be for our early learning practitioners when they’re at full capacity.
