Florence 2.0: the Virtual Health Worker

The term Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gaining more prominence in everyday speech. For some experts, it even means the most important revolution in technology since the advent of computing.

By giving a simple definition of AI, it can be said that "it is the attempt to imitate human intelligence using a robot, or software"; something like a thinking machine and acting similar to a person.

Precisely, the World Health Organization (WHO) saw in this tool the option of being able to help citizens adopt healthier lifestyles. Also to try a significant decrease in the very high death figures that customs such as tobacco and poor diet cause every year.

On this idea of providing an innovative and participatory platform came Florence 2.0, the virtual worker https://www.who.int/es/campaigns/Florence that this United Nations organization presented at the Global Summit on Innovation for Health, held in Qatar, October 2022.

The usefulness of its services was palpable during Covid-19 to deal with the stressful impact with which the pandemic hit the emotional and physical stability of humanity. At the same time, it allowed us to counteract the false information that was circulating about this virus.

In fact, within its functions, this digital health assistant answers interactive questions related to Covid-19 vaccines. In addition, it promotes stress management and offers advice on how to eat healthy, be more physically active and quit tobacco smoking and electronic cigarettes.

As for the latter, WHO had a previous version (Florence) of the new technological means to serve as support for the campaign that it designed in order to counteract smoking.

Even when it is stated that Florence 2.0 is available seven days a week, 24 hours a day through videos and text messages, reality shows that for Cuba to request this service has the irregularity that "the distribution of Amazon CloudFront is configured to block access from your country”.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff