Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá and Tecsalud are thrilled to announce a partnership agreement that will focus on the strategic growth and enhancement of a chatbot for sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and the development of new digital tools to increase access for youth across the region.
The existing Sexperto chatbot aims to help users from across Latin America to address questions related to contraception, sexually transmitted infections, gender violence, diversity, and pleasure, among other topics.
The alliance between FSFB and Tecsalud will help to facilitate technical improvements and new ways to reach potential users in other regions and hopefully grow our funding support that will in turn improve user outcomes and quality care delivery. In addition to chatbot enhancements for scale, key areas we’ll focus on in 2024 include building out more advanced utilization analytics, artificial intelligence features, and digital health and wellness platforms that can significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE) programs, placing young people in a position less vulnerable to gender violence, early marriage, and unplanned pregnancies.
Research collaboration for innovation and development of tools to address SRH access and scale of the Sexperto Chatbot
TecSalud and FSFB will also collaborate on a series of innovation research efforts that encourage the creation of new solutions and products that will reduce information access barriers, and promote autonomy of young people in their SRH by providing safe, engaging, and inclusive tools for individuals, families, communities and educators.
The two organizations are seeking new ways to scale the Sexperto chatbot both within Latin America and in other geographies that could benefit from greater access to SRH resources that are confidential, clinically accurate, and inclusive. The current Sexperto platform’s impact is impressive, with 1,748,095 users visiting the tool between January and May 2023. User-base grew 63% in 2023 compared to the previous year. Sexperto has remained live 24/7, allowing access from any electronic device (computer, cell phone and/or tablet) to a database of more than 1,600 questions/answers on sexual and reproductive health, which has been built and validated by by more than 8 million users from all over Latin America and the Caribbean.
It has significant potential to expand its reach to other areas and sectors, including education as it pertains to sexual health education curricula and local public policy. There is great potential for international scale, including to non-Spanish speaking geographies considering the significant number of users since 2017 in Mexico (1,987,786) and Argentina (782,554).
About the teams
FSFB is an organization at the forefront of the health sector in Colombia and the region. With more than two decades of research experience, its main objective is to provide health services of exceptional technical and scientific quality. FSFB has actively advanced the creation of forums for discussion, study, and positive impact within academic communities and among vulnerable populations.
Tecsalud is a woman owned and operated company that collaborates with social impact, healthcare, humanitarian aid and education partners throughout the Americas to build comprehensive digital equity and digital transformation strategies. The team focuses on using practical technologies (WhatsApp, Chatbot AI, digital data collection) and impact analytics to support partners as they aim to use technology for good.