“I always thought coding was necessary to create a chatbot, but Glific made it so easy.”

“I asked my sister to try a chatbot flow I made, and she was amazed I created it in just a day.”

“I didn’t expect adding multiple languages in a chatbot would be so simple—it’s just one click!”

These were just a few of the many “Aha” moments we heard from NGOs who created chatbot for the very first time and within two days of our Accelerator workshop. These statements were ‘Aha’ moments for us as well, as these were the same NGOs who, before the workshop, were anxious about creating a chatbot due to their lack of technical background or coding knowledge.

But before I dive deeper, let me give you some context on what the Accelerator is and why we started it.

Over the last 3 years, while interacting with many new organizations exploring Glific and chatbots, we often hear hesitations that prevent them from piloting a chatbot, even though they believe it can solve their challenges. Common concerns include fears of integrating technology, lack of knowledge or support, and budget constraints for experimentation.

At Glific, one of our core principles is to encourage organizations to pilot, learn, and iterate to identify core problems, understand users, and find the best path forward. To address NGOs’ concerns and promote piloting, we’ve been running the “Accelerator” (formerly known as Bootcamp) to help NGOs overcome their resistance and start piloting their chatbot programs. Last year, we ran two cohorts across three cities, helping 15 NGOs embark on their chatbot journey. (Cohort 2 Blog from last year)

As we planned to run the 3rd Cohort of the Tech4Impact Chatbot Accelerator this year, our team had in-depth discussions and debates on how to design the program to ensure NGOs can successfully run pilots after launching their chatbots. We reflected on our learnings from previous cohorts and reached out to past participants to understand the challenges they faced and gather their suggestions for improvement. After a month of rigorous research and discussions, we finalized the ideal benefits for NGOs participating in the Accelerator and identified the types of organizations that would gain the most from the program.

The next two months were dedicated to executing our Accelerator plan. To find organizations that would benefit from the program, we used various outreach channels, from LinkedIn to collaborations with partners who helped spread the word, and tapped into our pipeline of organizations that had previously shown interest in Glific. A huge shoutout to our partners—The Agency Fund, Koita, Rebuild, Arghyam—who supported us on this journey. And we can’t forget our biggest supporters, the Glific community, who promoted us on LinkedIn and recommended us through their leadership.

As a result, we had 24 NGOs from over six sectors joining our 3rd cohort of Tech4Impact Chatbot Accelerator at Delhi. Our BizDev team engaged with each NGO through multiple calls to help them refine their use cases for their first chatbot pilot. We encountered some truly powerful and innovative ideas—from AI-powered skill training for nannies to helping families of marginalized prisoners navigate through basic legal FAQs to empowering frontline workers managing village water schemes, and building career awareness among first-generation learners. These ideas have the potential to create real social impact.

Based on our learnings and feedback from the last two cohorts, we realized that two days of in-person sessions might not be sufficient to equip organizations with the necessary knowledge to run chatbots effectively. As a result, we designed the 3rd Accelerator cohort as a 2-month journey, starting with a two-day in-person workshop. We planned and curated resources for the workshop with four main objectives:

• NGOs should leave with at least two flows they can use in their pilot.
• NGOs should be familiar with at least 12 features of the Glific platform.
• NGOs should have a one-month chatbot (pilot) plan.
• NGOs should have the opportunity to meet and learn from their peers.

With these objectives in mind, we designed multiple sessions for the workshop, covering topics from the basics of conversational design to creating Glific flows and planning their first pilot. We aimed to balance knowledge sharing, peer learning, and hands-on experience, with a dedicated Glific POC supporting them throughout.

We collected feedback regularly on both days to adjust our approach as needed. Based on the feedback from Day 1, we made tweaks to some sessions on Day 2, such as sharing Glific success stories and exploring different integrations with Glific. We also adjusted the session pace and incorporated more Hindi alongside English, which was well appreciated by the NGOs.

The two-day workshop concluded with highly positive feedback from the NGOs, and the workshop received an NPS of 70.

Here are some of the many heartwarming comments we received:

“I liked the engagement of the team into understanding and breaking down the problem statement. The team is well versed with tech and has a deep understanding of the development space and the Indian context (didn’t anticipate the later to be this strong, kudos to the team :)”- Harshvi, Sol’s Arc

“Workshop was a good balance of learning from others and doing things yourself! Felt like it really brought the 70-20-10 learning principle to life!”- Shivani, KER – Teach for India

“Meeting a lot of people in the development sector, and understanding the various ways technology can make a great impact. The one on one explanations from the team made is extremely easy for a non-tech person to understand.”- Fatima, Red dot Foundation

“Loved the Support from team, learnings and simplicity of the Glific platform” – Jobin, Gram Vikas

Our team also witnessed the joy, excitement and a few happy dances among NGOs as they successfully created their first chatbot flows. We hope this curiosity and enthusiasm for learning continue to grow.

We are deeply grateful for our Glific NGO community. Our Pioneer NGOs were instrumental in supporting the workshop. Naveen from Piramal Foundation joined on Day 1 to assist new NGOs, and while Kriti from Dost Education was scheduled for Day 2, she unfortunately fell ill at the last moment. Suraj from Gupshup, our fantastic partner, also joined to interact and learn from the new cohort. With multiple partners collaborating, we hope to support even more NGOs in the future.

As mentioned earlier, this is a 2-month cohort designed so that by the end of September, NGOs will have most of the information they need to continue exploring and experimenting (the chatbot learning journey never truly ends!). We have organized five online webinars in the next 2 months, covering topics such as Data & Dashboards, Pricing, and LLM Integrations to further enhance their knowledge. NGOs can also opt for weekly office hours with their assigned POC, who will support them over the next two months in implementing their pilots. To further encourage NGOs to run pilots, we proposed to waive off 2nd month’s Glific subscription fees to the NGOs who achieve their pilot goals.

As I write this blog, some of our NGOs have already started their pilots and have received positive feedback from their teams. We hope it’s an onward and upward journey from here!