Our goal is to help NYC residents by providing 24/7 access to resources by providing them with a simple experiences by utilizing the IBM Watson Assistants chatbot functionality to ask simple questions and make recommendations based on the answers. We spent time researching resources ranging from medical and dental care to mental health services and hotlines that are available in NYC at no or low-cost (for example: sliding scale). We took collected that information and organized it into a format that we could use in the backend flask app and presented on the frontend react app. The data we collected is available here should anyone want to use this data in their own work for the betterment of the world or is simply looking for resources for themselves or their loved ones.

My contribution to this project was three-fold. Firstly, I was responsible for creating the backend API for the frontend react application which was responsible for communicating with the IBM Watson Assitant and presenting the final information to the front end when the decision was made by the assistant. Secondly, I lead the group in researching, organizing, and utilizing the data for the application by outlining the data that we needed, how we should organize it in a consistent way, etc as well as assisting with the actual research itself. And last, but most definitely not least, I spend hours developing a simple, intuitive decision process for the IBM Watson Assistant's chatbot to follow throughout the conversation leading the user from the first interaction all the way to any of the various resources we beleived would be useful based on their responses.