Ontario tech workers create chatbot to help those with breast cancer

A group of Waterloo-based tech industry workers have launched a free chatbot designed to help answer questions related to breast cancer.

By visiting the AskEllyn.ai website, users can ask standalone questions or have full conversations with the chatbot, which uses the tone of cancer survivor Ellyn Winters-Robinson. After being diagnosed last year and having a double mastectomy, Winters-Robinson founded the startup AskEllyn and wrote a book called Flat Please about her journey.

Speaking to the Waterloo Record, Winters-Robinson says she hopes that the chatbot will be able to provide others with emotional support and explanations of terms and options. “Women are so shell-shocked by what’s going on that they often don’t do their research, and they sometimes end up on pathways that they didn’t need to be on, or don’t want to be on,” Winters-Robinson told the publication.

AskEllyn.ai isn’t intended, of course, to be a substitute for an actual doctor. Instead, it’s meant to be another tool for people against breast cancer, the most common form of cancer among Canadian women.

More information on AskEllyn.ai can be found here.

Source: The Waterloo Record