Friday Lunchtime Lecture: Martin Vowels introduces Grace, a bot to boost your wellbeing at work

Plexus is a mental wellbeing startup that aims to support people in and out of work. In striving to reflect, review and help empower change in people’s daily lives, Plexus builds on the NHS 5 steps to wellbeing and government reports into digital empowerment in the workplace. Since winning the ODI Showcase in 2015, the first product that Plexus has produced is ‘Grace’, an AI bot. For five minutes each day, Grace asks users questions about their challenges, confidence, positivity and how useful they have felt the day has been. Users can then explore the data they record in weekly, customised emails and a personalisable online dashboard. Plexus also uses machine learning to direct users to its knowledge base, which aggregates data sourced from over 25 different government services, NGOs and charities including Mind, Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert and Shelter. Open data sits at the heart of this process, from supporting users learn to helping develop Grace’s ability to understand and predict. A primary goal for Plexus is to produce meaningful open datasets that have the power to shape service provision on a regional and national level. About Martin Vowles Martin Vowles is Creative Director & co-Founder of M/A and also CEO of Plexus. With a MA in Communication Art and Design from the Royal College of Art, in 2008 Martin co-founded digital design studio M/A, which has created digital and physical design products for Mind, NSPCC, Southbank Centre, Tommy’s, Visit Bankside, Headlong, Sam Mcknight and Kings College. Martin’s interests include Typography, civic tech, data visualisation and encrypted fabric printing and you can find him on twitter @martininma. Watch a video of the lecture here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkayFmLj9zk Find out more about ODI events here https://theodi.org/events