Fishers from the Wild Coast have observed that they get fewer bites when there are bluebottles around. LOBI asked its users about their own experiences fishing with an increased presence of bluebottles via a poll, and the responses were illuminating!

LOBI has been translated into KiSwahili

LOBI has been translated into French and Seselwa Kreol (Seychellois).

LOBI was used to facilitate a clinic at the ABALOBI Indaba with the primary goal of enhancing the familiarity of attending fishers with the various tech tools integrated into the ABALOBI ecosystem.

Following the success of the Buffelsjag Fun Day, a similar event was hosted in Kleinmond.

This event allowed community members to meet ABALOBI team members, and to learn more about ABALOBI as an organisation, and its tech tools.

LOBI was piloted with 11 test users. The users had no problems using the bot; their journey was straightforward and they did not require guidance from the team. A few confusing phrases were identified and subsequently tweaked.

In August 2022, the chatbot was launched and tested internally, and officially named by the ABALOBI team.

ABALOBI’s WhatsApp chatbot was created as a virtual assistant to onboard users to a savings pilot (CGAP) funded by the World Bank.

A survey was administered to savings pilot participants to gauge their response to various features of the program. Please take a look at the gallery for aggregated and anonymized responses.