Just ‘Ask Darj’ to know local info about Darjeeling

REZA PRADHAN

DARJEELING,: Darjeeling now has its own localized version of “ChatGpt” termed “Ask Darj”, the hill’s first WhatsApp-based AI Chatbot developed by a handful of local youngsters where different local information is also available just a message away.

Developed with the tag line “A Local in your Pocket”, interested people can now get details on where to find good cafés, restaurants, tour itineraries, taxi information, tailors, laundry, public toilets which only locals would know along with the comprehensive data of Darjeeling including the background and history.

Speaking about the how it all started, one of the founder members, Tenzee Lhawang Bhutia said, “I have been running a backpacker hostel in Darjeeling for about three years now and I would be asked the same questions by the guests every time like which are the places where they could get good food along with which places should they visit. Moreover, I was a frequent user of apps like ChatGpt so I got the idea of developing an AI Chatbot which could have information on Darjeeling and can provide answers to queries made of this place.”

“Local information that is not even available on the internet is available here, due to custom data being fed into the AI. This includes shops, stores, lesser known tourist attractions, viewpoints, and even emergency contacts that would otherwise require support and contact with well-informed locals,” he added.

The desire to build such a platform was so great in Bhutia that he learnt how to develop such an app from the internet itself.

“I first made a basic version in which people could send their queries in a WhatsApp number and it would be answered through the data we had collected,” said Bhutia maintaining that the data material was already present with him being a local and having worked in the tourism sector for the past three years.

Bhutia maintained that another co-founder of “Ask Darj”, Saharsh Thapa joined the project as a data scientist.

“Thapa is a friend and is a data scientist who put forward more ideas as to how we could make the product better. He was at that time working in a firm at Siliguri but I convinced him to join me and we started working together. In fact he even left his job and dedicated his entire time to the startup,” said Bhutia maintaining it took them about three months to start the beta phase with more testing going on as to how to improve it further.

Also joining the duo in this project were two more youngsters, one of whom is a data engineer and other is a web developer, Satyanand Thapa and Sudama Chettri.

At present “Ask Darj” already has 550 users at present and through the AI they are monitoring more questions that are coming in with the option of the Chatbot answering in different languages.

“AskDarj” is now available through their Whatsapp number or they can go to the site askdarj.in.

According to Bhutia, even now more data entry is being done based on the type of queries they are getting as they wanted their Chatbot to be “tailored according to what the users want”.

“The users that we have got till now are without any proper marketing having been done but only our QR codes put up in some places. The WhatsApp version of the Chatbot is finely tuned for Darjeeling. Now we are trying to develop a framework so that this can be applied to any other city. We then will only have to do the work of data entry,”

Bhutia said, maintaining that they were planning to introduce such systems for places like Gangtok and Manali, which are tourist haunts.

Speaking about their future plans, Bhutia also said that they were also developing an interactive website with the same features of a Chatbot but will also be integrated with the map feature where locations can also be shown.

When asked how they plan to generate funds through this, Bhutia said,

“There are many options later on like we can do promotions and advertise their establishment through us or we can also start bookings through us on commission basis in the website.”

The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Tourism department has also been supporting this venture by providing them with data and information on Darjeeling along with plans to help them with marketing later on so more people can start using it.