Funded research
BMEL: SMAEG Bot
Smart Eating Bot for local food
The project SMAEG Bot is a joint initiative with the Regiothek, a local start-up promoting regional and ecological food, and the Chair of Data Science at Passau University. The aim is to develop a chatbot that integrates into the existing online platform of the Regiothek GmbH. It aims at supporting the local food producers, retail sector and gastronomy to market their products and to facilitate communication between businesses.
A growing interest in sustainability as well as more and more concerns about climate change and environmental issues lead to an increased demand in regional and ecological food products. At the same time, the consumer’s communications patterns are changing towards a more frequent use of digital communication and information channels. However, the regional agriculture and food processing industry, consisting mostly of small and medium, family-driven enterprises, often lags behind the changing communication needs of both companies and consumers. The local IT-startup Regiothek provides an online platform where the challenge of matching demand and supply on the market of regional foodstuffs in the area of Lower Bavaria is being addressed.
The Project
Based on artificial intelligence, the Chair of Data Science will develop chatbot technologies that aim at enhancing the communication between businesses of the regional agriculture and food industry as well as supporting the companies in their marketing activities towards the consumers. The chatbot will be integrated in the existing online distributions platform of the Regiothek GmbH, a Passau-based start-up founded in 2018. The platform allows local food producers, retailers and gastronomy to present their range of products and visualize their supply relationships on a map. This enables consumers to trace the origin of the requested food product. In the course of the project SMAEG Bot, the platform will be further adapted to the communication patterns of the users to make the usability even easier and more intuitive. In order to understand the communication needs of the different user groups, CENTOURIS will investigate on the user preferences and will provide usability studies accompanying the development of new technological solutions.
The project SMAEG Bot aims at integrating new, AI-based online tools on the distribution platform of the Regiothek that will enable a higher food supply chain efficiency via enhanced communication. Regional distribution channels in agriculture, the food processing industry as well as gastronomy will be strengthened and sustainable and ecological food products promoted.
Project Duration: 04/2021 - 04/2024
Project Amount: 366.641,50 €
Project Website: https://www.uni-passau.de/smaeg-bot/foerderprojekt-smaeg-bot/
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