Aleph Alpha's digital citizen assistant will help facilitate access to information in the future through AI.

When will the garbage be picked up on my street? Which concerts are taking place on the weekend? What has the local council recently decided? In the future, Heidelberg's new citizen assistant will be able to answer these and many other questions. 
The digital assistant is not just a chatbot that plays back predefined answers, it has (artificial) intelligence and responds individually to citizens' questions. On the occasion of the nationwide Digital Day on June 24, 2022, the city of Heidelberg provided insight into this new project for the first time.
 
Jonas Andrulis, founder and CEO of Aleph Alpha: "Together with the city of Heidelberg, we have proven that public administration can do AI. With the help of the AI citizen assistant, processing times will be shortened and the administration will be set up more efficiently and effectively. We hope that the project will bring about a noticeable improvement for users and a significant increase in the quality of the administration's services. We would like to thank the city of Heidelberg and Prof. Dr. Würzner for their trust and for allowing us to prove that young companies can make a noticeable contribution to improving public administration." 

The citizen assistant is still looking for a name: The Office of Digital Affairs and Information Processing is collecting name suggestions via the e-mail address digitales(at)heidelberg.de. These can be submitted until Friday, July 1, 2022.