A screenshot of the prototype Caremates developed. There is a dashboard with patients and relevant categories listed.

The German Red Cross in Baden-Württemberg is a very decentralized organization. Highly engaged local branches exist in all shapes and sizes and offer an individual variety of activities. This makes them act very close to local the communities. The challenge connected is that the organization is missing synergies and transparency. Data and reports are not harmonized nor centrally hosted.

This fact comes along with the challenge of processing unstructured data from multiple sources provided by district associations. Not only was the data difficult to analyze manually, but there was also limited awareness of which data was already available and what additional information needed to be requested.

Wouldn't it be great if the board of local Red Cross organization could create the perfect yearly report in minutes?

The team identified this as a crucial starting point. Employees and decision makers within the German Red Cross state and district organizations wish to allocate resources more effectively and support challenges that are currently not receiving enough attention, yet.
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Until this day, it was not feasible to evaluate all available information in order to make data-based decisions.

The team was convinced that current capabilities in artificial intelligence should direct to a solution. They evaluated several technologies and created essential workflows around it.
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The solution: An AI-powered platform to parse, analyze and present insights from diverse and unstructured data sources.
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In order to make insights available to users, of course, a chatbot needs to be part of the solution. Users get instant answers on specific queries. There is also a dashboard for detailed analytics and trend tracking. They also realized, that there needs to be a function to feed data into the system. An upload function was created to extend data sources and ensure that desired results improve and fill over time. Further, in dialogue with their users, essential data points had been defined. An overview is easy acessible and shows numbers ranked by district associations for easy comparison and insight.

By further implementing and extending this solution approach, the German Red Cross, walkes a big step closer to its goal. They will save valuable time by automating data extraction. Having accurate and actionable insights at hand, they can enhance their decision making. All in all, it enables a simpler data access and fosters a better allocation of resources.

Team picture of Gen Why in the wintergarden

Learnings & Benefit

Employees often struggled to frame a question without guidance, making it challenging to extract specific needs.

Many employees were unaware of what information already exists, where it is stored, or whether they even own the data in a usable format.

Problem-focus helps not to fall in love with a certain solution or technology too early in the process.

KIRK enables a new way to interact with data.

The Team

Jonas Wiethop (Product Manager)

Napassarun Panprasert (Interaction Desiner)

Sreehari Pradeep Kumar (AI Engineer)

Rhei Justin Juan (Software Engineer)

Ruslana Hural (Software Engineer)

Approach

The primary research involved discussions with Red Cross representatives to understand why they need the data and the steps they currently take to obtain it. Additionally, the team prioritized launching an early version of the chatbot within the first weeks. This prototype allowed to observe how representatives frame their questions in a digital tool. While the initial answers could have been more useful, this process provided valuable insights into user behavior and needs.