In my final year of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation at UTS, I was allocated a group to work in partnership with the Innovation Lab at CBA. Our challenge offering was how we could incorporate using social robotics in some way.

No one in my group was familiar with technology in that regard so the product we created was extremely conceptual, but lead us to some interesting findings along the way. This was our process.

THE CHALLENGE

Coming into the Innovation Lab, we were given a challenge of figuring out how we could give social robots a purpose. As a bank, their number one priority was to encourage financial wellbeing across all customers which inspired us to create a product that sets individuals up to be employable, so that they can start the journey to financial wellbeing.

OUR OVERALL PROPOSAL

Securing a mutualistic relationship between Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and their Australian youth market (14 - 18 years of age) provides both entities with value that is realised throughout the relationships life. For CBA, the Australian youth market is the foundation of their retail banking sector with early age value being generated through savings and transaction accounts; transitioning to greater value products such as home loans and credit cards as individuals improve their financial wellbeing. On the other hand, the Australian youth market benefit from short-term conveniences of debit cards and e-payment options whilst later in life they may be able to realise the powers of compound interest and utilise debt to finance products or services. As such, the important metrics used for considering the health of these relationships are onboarding percentages as a portion of the Australian youth population and Australian youth customer retention throughout their lifetime.

To address these metrics, we proposed to CBA the introduction of our product ‘memo.re’; an interactive smart-phone case programmed with an embedded personal companion for the short-term purpose of improving wellbeing of Australian youth and in the long-term future-proofing their careers. The case, branded as ‘re.case’, would be provided at low-cost to Australian youth as a bonus incentive of establishing some relationship with CBA, whether through a savings account or some form of investment. Users can then effectively track their life experiences through audio or text input whilst the ‘re.case’ provides instant output and feedback. Over time, the life experiences will become visualised through data allowing for a story of the individual to be shown. This information can be used for solely personal growth and guidance, or also for professional purposes as a new form of recruitment opportunity. 

Ultimately, this product captures value from the Australian youth market within both the retail banking sector and the growing opportunity space of human and social robotics relations. The success of memo.re may implicate the roles social robotics can have within the financial services industry and general wellbeing to help bring CBA to the forefront of an accelerating industry as market leaders.

OUR SOLUTION - MEMO.RE AS A CONCEPT

Memo.re is a smart phone case equipped with a digital social companion. Memo.re is all about recording, recalling and reflecting on your memories to help you be better organised for your future in relation to your skills, goals, achievements and overall wellbeing.

The product is made for young Australians from the age of 14 and is aimed to be used over their academic life and later if they please. Memo.re uses a socially intelligent robot through Artificial Intelligence (AI) which is embedded into the back of a phone case that links to an application that visualises the input provided by the user. The user uses voice or text input to communicate with the companion that appears on the case in an honest way that clearly reflects their day, highlighting key events in their life, ones that challenge them and celebrate the successes. Over time, the AI will start learning and understanding the user, generating questions to stimulate and encourage them to share experiences. Through these conversations the AI will be able to pinpoint skills and achievements whilst building a real-time profile of the user through its visual outputs as seen in the app.

The interface is influenced by popular apps today such as Instagram and Snapchat and reflects your personal profile, enhancing the idea that memo.re is “more about me”. The home screen displays a feed of graphical outputs which are visual representations of the data being captured through the users inputs. These outputs are generated by the conversations held with the Re.case and are categorised into a range of soft skills (such as teamwork, leadership, teachability), personality assessments, and achievement/goal tracking. These outputs can then be explored further by the user to unveil deeper understandings and insights into their level of capabilities and skills whilst allowing users to reflect on these outcomes to grow and improve themselves.

FEATURES

With the rise of bitmoji (character representations of yourself), we have decided to include it as the overall icon profile of the user. Through the app users can customise the character that resides in the re.case. Customisation has been pushed due to our research into the target market showing their interest in making something truly their own. The companion we have designed as the default is a bubble named “Charlie” however this can be customised in the character settings to suit the users desires. The user can customise the character’s personality, adjusting the way is speaks and responds to you, the voice of the companion and its activeness.

EXPERIENCE THROUGH PLAY

The aim is to get the user and the companion to form a strong bond, and one way of strengthening this is through play. Interactions such as dancing, flicking or bouncing the character around the screen can be performed and even the option for different types of questions to prompt the user from time to time such as ‘would you rather’s’ to challenge the user and test them on their responses. The case contains a green LED to alert the user the companion wants to interact. Options are available to give the user freedom of how often the re.case will notify them and talk to them. The capture tool allows the user to choose how much data they are actually sharing with memo.re. It’s default setting would have all the options switched off to respect the privacy of the user, however if they wish to develop a deeper understanding of themselves, they may choose to have in built settings switched on that already exist within the phone, such as GPS, accelerometer, or connect to apps such as calendar.

HELPS YOU GROW

One of the highlighted aspects of memo.re is that it wants the user to grow as well as to be able understand themselves. The app contains an ‘opportunities’ page that has three separate tabs. The first tab “jobs” is particularly useful for young Australians still in high school who are figuring out what profession they may be interested in but don’t have the qualifications for or finding your first job. The conversations with the re.case allow the A.I. to compile a list of suggested matches, revealing industries their skills closely link to as well as what jobs are currently available for them that they can apply to. The second tab ‘Interests’ is generated from a collation of events, activities, music and entertainment that the user may have mentioned over time that they participated in or enjoyed. The tab recommends suggested interests within each category that the user may be explore, linking to the idea of growth and wellbeing. In the third tab ‘skills’ encourages growth and personal development in both soft and hard skills that the user may be interested in learning and pursuing. It will show a range of courses that are both free and paid and the duration of each course that line up to the users schedule. As users action on these tabs, it will be reflected in their feed and can show external parties such as recruiters that the individual is constantly looking to grow.