ChatCare, technology at the service of people

16/05/2025

4 min.

Coding Girls in Turin: 20 teams compete to develop chatbots that simplify access to social services

Yesterday, 74 high school students from Turin and the surrounding area competed in the final hackathon of the fourth edition of Coding Girls in Turin, an initiative promoted by Fondazione Mondo Digitale ETS in collaboration with Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo to introduce students to STEM subjects and the opportunities offered by digital technology. Organised into 20 teams, the students designed a virtual assistant to respond to the challenge 'ChatCare. The chatbot for inclusion and social support', with the aim of developing intelligent technology capable of simplifying access to social and assistance services in the city of Turin, offering immediate, reliable and tailored information to those who need it most.

The winners

Best project
VroomVroomTO by team 12 “Somme” from ITC G. Sommeiller
Team members: Cristian, Leonardo, Sebastian and Alessandro
A virtual assistant to help people find their way around Turin. Designed for students, tourists, the elderly and people with disabilities, it suggests the best means of transport and places to visit in real time, integrating game features to explore the city.

Most inclusive project
TurinForAll by team 20 ‘Tronky's fc’ from IIS A. Avogadro
Team members: Ilyas, Lorenzo and Adam
A multilingual chatbot designed to facilitate access to municipal services for foreign citizens. It provides clear information on school canteens, transport, residence and documents, making even the most complex procedures simple thanks to an interactive and accessible guide.

Most creative project
Stayability by team 6 ‘Visg a Visg’ from the Convitto Nazionale Umberto I
Team members: Sofia, Isabella, Giulia and Vittoria
A chatbot that helps people with motor and visual disabilities find accessible accommodation in Piedmont. The system suggests solutions based on the level of accessibility, with a simple interface and multiple-choice questions.

Best user-friendly chatbot
Scarpe Rosse by team 16 from the Galileo-Ferraris Institute
Team members: Emma, Victoria, Elisa and Viola
An intelligent assistant that creates an anonymous and secure channel for women who are victims of violence. It provides emotional support, useful contacts and immediate guidance, with information verified by public sources.

During the day, the head of U-Care Medical, a spin-off of the Polytechnic University of Turin and a young I3P alumna company that won the 2023 Startup Award at the famous national competition ‘Premio 2031’, spoke about startups.

On 15 April, the first final event of Coding Girls in Turin for lower secondary schools took place. This training course involved over 50 students, who were engaged in the development of creative digital projects with Scratch, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda [read the news item Creativity and sustainability].

For eleven years, the Coding Girls programme has been contributing to the challenge of achieving equal opportunities in science and technology by acting on several fronts, with a collaborative alliance based on the ‘Education for Life’ model, between schools, universities, organisations and companies united by common goals to help young female students gain confidence in science and orient themselves towards technical and scientific studies and professions. The alliance, led by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale ETS, with the patronage of the US Diplomatic Mission in Italy, sees the active collaboration of Microsoft, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, ING Italia, Roboteco Italargon, Google.org.

The project involves a dense territorial network of schools, families, universities, companies and public and private organisations. Thanks to this solid educational consortium, after involving around 15,000 female students in more than 30 Italian cities and over 33 universities, the programme offers young women the opportunity to meet role models from the academic and business worlds, to be inspired by their stories and discover new career opportunities and fields. There are several different strands: AI at the service of the local community (University of Cagliari, University of Salerno), cybersecurity against cyberbullying (La Sapienza University of Rome and Federico II University of Naples), data science (University of Milan), financial education and environmental sustainability. The programme is based on a peer-to-peer training model: in Palermo, 50 university students become tutors for high school students, while in Milan, mixed teams of Italian and foreign university students train their younger colleagues. There are also opportunities for personal development through the Personal Ecosystem Canvas tool, which helps participants to consciously plan their future.

Photo gallery

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Statements

‘Coding Girls represents a concrete opportunity to help young female students make informed and free choices about their educational and professional paths. Empowering the younger generation also means offering them the opportunity to explore worlds that are still too closely associated with men. Thank you, therefore, to the Fondazione Mondo Digitale for continuing to shine a spotlight on the importance of STEM subjects, sowing seeds of interest and igniting passions.’
Carlotta Salerno, Councillor for Education, School Building, Youth, Suburbs and Urban Regeneration, City of Turin

‘We are proud to host the final event of Coding Girls Torino at I3P, a place where innovation, talent and new ideas are cultivated every day. Initiatives such as this are essential for stimulating curiosity about technology in young people – especially young women – and encouraging them to explore career paths that are still relatively inaccessible but rich in opportunities. As a university incubator, we strongly believe in the power of entrepreneurial education and will continue to support projects that promote equal access to the world of technology and business.’
Paola Mogliotti, Director of the Innovative Business Incubator at the Politecnico di Torino (I3P)

‘Coding Girls is much more than a training programme: it is a widespread laboratory of scientific citizenship, which gives voice and space to the new generation, with a particular focus on female empowerment. Today's hackathon is the culmination of an intense journey that has involved students from Turin in practical, creative and orientation activities. The winner is not only the team that proposed the most effective solution, but an entire educational community that believed in the power of digital technology as a lever for inclusion and development. The ‘ChatCare’ challenge, which invites participants to design intelligent chatbots to facilitate access to the city's social services, shows how young people can make a concrete contribution to generating social impact by imagining technologies that serve the most vulnerable. It is an exercise in civic innovation that values computational thinking, but also empathy, listening and a sense of responsibility. We would like to thank the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation for its ongoing support and our local partners for their valuable collaboration. We will continue to invest in educational alliances to reduce the gender gap and prepare young people for the challenges of the digital, economic and social transition.
Mirta Michilli, Director General of the Fondazione Mondo Digitale ETS

The winning projects

The challenge: ChatCare. The chatbot for inclusion and social support

Information on personal services in Turin and its province is generally available through online resources, such as the websites of the Municipality, the Metropolitan City and other local authorities. However, these portals can be difficult to navigate and the information is not always presented in a clear or easily accessible way. This can be a barrier, particularly for older people, people with disabilities, foreign nationals, people with limited digital skills, who may find it difficult to access online services, or for citizens in socially vulnerable situations.

The aim of the challenge is to develop an intelligent chatbot for a specific target audience or a wider audience, which simplifies access to one or more social and assistance services, providing immediate and reliable information to those who need it most.

The chatbot must:

Provide information on basic services (e.g. canteens, dormitories, listening centres, health support, psychological assistance, etc.)
Provide useful contacts and opening hours for accessing social services in the area
Guide people in requesting help, assisting them in finding the solution best suited to their situation
Be accessible to all, using simple language and offering the possibility of integration with voice assistants
Be anonymous and secure, respecting user privacy.

Guiding questions

Social impact: does the chatbot really facilitate access to assistance for those who need it?
Usability and accessibility: is it easy to use, understandable and available on multiple platforms?
Reliability and updating: is the information provided accurate, verified and up to date?
Scalability: can it be adapted for other cities or user categories?

Put your skills to work for your community and develop a tool that can really make a difference for people in need. Are you ready to create a chatbot that helps leave no one behind?

The challenge in numbers

6 schools in Turin and its province
74 students from the following schools: Liceo C. Cattaneo (both main and branch campuses), IIS A. Avogadro, Convitto Nazionale Umberto I, IIS Ferrari-Mercurino, ITC G. Sommeiller, IIS Galileo-Ferraris
20 groups and final projects (out of more than 50 submitted by the three-year secondary schools involved)
11 teachers: Aurora Grandino and Licia Gesumaria (Liceo C. Cattaneo), Andrea Lamari (Liceo Cattaneo - branch), Annamaria Anzillotti and Enrico Tripicchio (Convitto Nazionale Umberto I), Marco Crosa (IIS Ferrari-Mercurino), Caterina Andolina (ITC G. Sommeiller), Paola Porta and Gloria Marchi (IIS Galileo-Ferraris), Paolo Nesi and Andrea Tamburretto (IIS A. Avogadro).

Trainers and speakers

Riccardo Accatino, Francesca Formaggio, Matteo Jacopo Lingua from FMD; Cecilia Stajano, head of the FMD community (greetings from Mirta); Paola Sabbione, Programme Manager for Culture, Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo; Paola Mogliotti, director of I3P; Negar Mokarram, Consultant and International Programs Project Manager at I3P and Roberta Guglietti, Event & Community Manager at I3P, Carlotta Salerno, Councillor for Education, School Building, Youth, Suburbs and Urban Regeneration of the City of Turin; representatives of U-Care Medical, a digital health start-up, spin-off of the Polytechnic University of Turin and winner of the Startup Award 2023.

ChatCare, technology at the service of people