A new Alexa skill is allowing citizens of West Virginia to get answers to questions about their government and its services. The skill to bring institutions closer to citizenship is a choice that many governments are beginning to make.

ALEXA’S COUNTRY ROAD

The voice app, designed to answer a wide range of questions about the West Virginia government and the services it has. The skill created for the Secretary of State is capable of informing users about the nominations of elected officials. It also gives infromation on how to vote and above all helps them in setting up businesses. This skill still needs optimization but basically it is capable of providing information to people on common and general questions.

We strive to be a leader when it comes to using new technology to communicate with our constituents and make it easier to interact with our office. Our new custom Alexa skill enables you to get answers to the most commonly asked questions about our office and the services we provide wherever you are using the most natural user interface in the world: the voice. We’ve barely scratched the surface with voice assistant technology, and we have more exciting functionality in the works.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner said in a statement.

GOVERNMENT SPEAKS

West Virginia and its Alexa Skill is a special case since it has a single state office. Therefore we can imagine there are other states that are adopting the idea of creating more voice apps or optimizing and increasing the current one. For example, in Mesa, Arizona, the government has launched an Alexa skill. It is able to respond to users on basic functions such as that of West Virginia. They can even accesses the calendar of events in the city and responds to people in more detail to regarding bills payments for example, always using the voice app. Paying for utilities is a reality that Amazon has already experienced in India. A service now extending over the world with over 700 service companies.

In addition, there are companies interested in connecting municipal data with voice apps. One of them is the Canadian startup Qwhery, which developed a product called Q11 capable of meeting these needs. Estonia instead, has decided to opt for a choice involving the whole nation. Therefore, a voice app capable of answering and connecting all citizens.
This, by answering questions that concern the laws of the State, up to questions concerning the public life of citizens. In short words, it is a real digitalization of the country system.

Source: VoiceBot