HelpFirst: May update

CRMs for casework; User testing in Edinburgh; Upcoming Events; Links

Image: Andy at the House of Lords with fellow CivTech alumni VouchSafe.


Hello

Progress & success

Our core HelpFirst system is now in beta at EHU. It’s been exciting to see caseworkers starting to benefit from the power of intelligent case notes.

Meanwhile, on our Innovate UK research project, Lucy has been in various Citizens Advice Bureaux of Edinburgh, researching client feedback around our LLM prototype.

Daniel Reyland has joined us on a Civilian Workplace Attachment, for people leaving the army. He’s helping us get our heads around the various potential use cases for HelpFirst in public sector casework.

We’ve been featured in Authority Magazine and StartupToFollow.

Also, we received our Cyber Essentials certification!

Our thinking on CRMs

Across charities and social services, a recurring pattern organisations are held back by legacy CRMs, sniffling the potential for machine learning to deliver positive impact. Angela explored: How to navigate the new, AI-enabled world of CRM systems.

Events

June 4th: Angela is talking on the role of AI in detecting vulnerable customers in the energy industry. (Electrify Everything - London)

June 19th: Andy is discussing looking at the challenges and opportunities of using AI to support hard to reach communities. (AI for Good - Newcastle)

June 20th: Delight to be talking at the In-Form conference. In-Form are leaders in the technology around online case management. (Transforming Case Management 2024: In-Form Conference - online)

Links

Can Humans Save us from biased AI? - Why human oversight isn’t enough to prevent biased decision-making in AI-supported systems: “human overseers largely ignored AI advice and did so in line with their discriminatory preferences”.

Is Social Work Becoming Less Rewarding? - LGA survey reports significant drops in “Having effective workplace systems” and “Having the time, resources, opportunities and support to do their CPD”.

The Era of Generative AI - Fabulous talk from Lukas Biewald on the differences between software development and machine learning development. Nails a number of experiences we’ve seen at HelpFirst.

Reverse Turing Test - Growing up, the Turing test was this theoretical, unreachable goal. I never considered the possibility of a reverse Turing test, let alone that humans would struggle in it.

Ask

We’re looking for some freelance ML engineering help. If you know anyone with experience in LLMs, NLP, classification and data analysis & wrangling - and looking to use those skills for good - please send them our way!

Best wishes,

Andy