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AI app for rural India can tell if a person is being pressured to take a loan

AI app for rural India can tell if a person is being pressured to take a loan
Photo Credit: Pixabay
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Professional services firm Accenture and the Indian arm of the non-profit Grameen Foundation have jointly built artificial intelligence- and augmented reality-based applications to help low-income women in the country access financial services.

The two applications --  EASE and Grameen Guru -- were developed at the Accenture Labs in Bangalore over the course of the past year. 

Emotional Analytics for Social Enterprises (EASE) is an AI-based web and mobile app that helps microfinance advisors gain real-time insights on the emotional and cognitive status of their clients, based on video and audio inputs. 

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The tool provides deeper insights on precisely what topics or keywords attract attention, or cause clients to disengage, the companies said. 

For instance, the tool could help detect whether a woman applying for a loan is being pressured to do so by someone or whether she would find the financing to be of genuine use. 

The other app, Grameen Guru, is a smartphone-based multilingual chatbot that uses augmented reality technology to help clients who can’t read or understand written material. 

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Using the app, a user can hold her phone over a brochure detailing available financing options, for example. The Guru virtual assistant will then pop up and prompt a conversation in the local language to explain the material. 

Grameen Foundation India said it plans to roll out the applications across 300 villages in Maharashtra and Odisha. 

“Barriers - ranging from illiteracy to a lack of bank branches in rural areas, coupled with a lack of confidence and access to information - hinder adoption for millions of low-income women in India,” said Prabhat Labh, chief executive officer of Grameen Foundation India. 

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Grameen Foundation said that the new applications were developed after the implementation of its new e-learning platform, G-LEAP, which it claims is being used by more than 1,000 frontline microfinance workers who have trained and equipped over 58,000 women beneficiaries to use digital financial services. 


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