Group will help direct CodeBaby in its initiative to develop highly engaging avatars that people will actually use
MILWAUKEE, Nov. 9, 2022 – CodeBaby, Inc., a leader in animated conversational AI chatbots, is pleased to announce the creation of its new Advisory Board, comprising distinguished experts in medicine, mental health, and marketing research.
Inaugural board members Dr. Alphonso Brown, Dr. Dipankar Chakravarti, and Dr. Jamie Thomson will advise CodeBaby as the company moves to broaden its offerings in the remote patient monitoring and digital health fields.
“As we continue our quest to make avatars more intelligent and engaging, we find ourselves digging deeper into various aspects of human behavior.” said CodeBaby founder and CEO Norrie Daroga. “This requires developing various personas for our avatars and then matching those with people who are interacting with the avatars.”
“The arrival of the pandemic and the well-documented current and future of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare providers have placed tremendous strain on the US healthcare system and exacerbated existing problems in the delivery of health care,” Dr. Brown said. “I am pleased to serve on the advisory board which will help CodeBaby develop avatar-based technology and Interactivity that will lead to the development of a new generation of physician extenders.”
As CodeBaby expands from its offerings in the e-Learning and online customer service spaces, the addition of the board will ensure that the Company’s flagship CodeBaby Avatars will abide by industry best practices, take advantage of latest technologies and developments, and meaningfully advance the level of engagement it’s started with its initial products.
“Even as we experience vast technological advances in communicating and delivering services, some of the same old human connection barriers continue to exist,” Dr. Thomson said. “I am excited by the possibilities CodeBaby presents in addressing and breaking down these barriers and enhancing human-machine interactions.”
“Recent interdisciplinary research (in medical fields, computer science and consumer psychology) shows that avatars with appropriate form and interaction capabilities can work alongside physicians to support consumers in making thoughtful and personalized choices among healthcare options.” Dr. Chakravarti said. “However, the task is by no means simple and requires significant design expertise and careful field testing to align the persona and capabilities of the CodeBaby avatars with the needs of prospective consumers.”
“CodeBaby is positioned at a sweet spot in the digital healthcare market that relates to helping consumers (patients) with medical, cognitive and emotional counseling, and supporting face-to-face or remote monitoring.” Dr. Chakravarti said. “I am excited about this opportunity to participate in taking science to market that builds on (and designing to) a research-based understanding of consumer needs”
The creation of the board represents a commitment from CodeBaby to increase the level of engagement between patients and remote health monitoring systems, as well as to fully explore and develop characters that are empathetic and personalized to bridge the engagement gaps in existing market solutions.
“We are thrilled to attract this caliber of individuals to our advisory board and look forward to their advice and direction as we grow our company.,” Daroga said.
About CodeBaby, Inc. – The CodeBaby teams come with over 20 years of experience in animation, gaming and artificial intelligence. The company was one of the first 100 companies to commercialize IBM Watson® technology for clients such as the Veterans Administration. Currently the CodeBaby platform leverages Conversational AI, speech recognition, and synthesized voice from a variety of cloud-based platforms, offering integrations of its dynamically generated Avatars with new and existing customer conversations.
About Dr. Alphonso Brown – Dr. Alphonso Brown is a practicing gastroenterologist and clinical researcher with formal training in gastroenterology, epidemiology, and clinical research methodology. He is currently an assistant professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology, department of medicine at Harvard Medical School at Cambridge Health Alliance. He is also an expert in addiction medicine and mental health and the developer and director of a mentorship program which trains students for careers in medicine. Dr. Brown graduated cum laude with his MD from Harvard Medical School and received his MS in clinical epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed an internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and went on to complete a gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
About Dr. Dipankar Chakravarti – Dr. Dipankar Chakravarti is Eminent Scholar and Professor of Marketing, and the Robert H. Digges Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. He holds a B.Sc. (Honors in Physics) from the University of Calcutta and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Industrial Administration from Carnegie-Mellon. He has served as Vice-Dean at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, the Ortloff Professor of Business at the Univ. of Colorado – Boulder, as Head, Department of Marketing at the Univ. of Arizona, and held faculty appointments at Duke and the Univ. of Florida. Dr. Chakravarti’s papers on the psychology of managerial and consumer decision making are widely cited and appear in elite scholarly business journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Marketing Science, Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, the Annual Review of Psychology and the Harvard Business Review. He is a lifetime Fellow of the Society for Consumer Psychology and has received multiple recognitions from the American Marketing Association and the Association for Consumer Research. He has served as a member of the founding editorial team and as Editor of the Journal of Consumer Psychology and has co-edited a recent special issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research on healthcare decision making.
About Dr. Jamie Thomson – Dr. Jamie Thomson has been committed to facilitating communication & connection while examining what makes people tick for the past 30 years. With a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Art from Ohio Northern University, she received her doctorate in clinical psychology in 2002 from Wright State University and practiced clinical psychology for seven years. In 2012, when she ventured into design, she discovered her goals of communication and connection did not change – her tools did. With brand design and strategy, her experience and knowledge of human emotions and behavior enriched her offerings, deepening every service she delivers. Jamie views brand strategy as building connections and rapport between brands and their customers and facilitating that relationship to foster awareness and ongoing loyalty. She helps brands identify strategies and pinpoint areas that may block access – allowing for honest connection and authentic messages. She designs for clear visual communication and creative brand messaging. Operating as an independent designer and consultant since 2012, Jamie thrives while working with health and wellness companies, human-computer interaction, female professionals, and artist branding. In her free time and when particularly stuck on a creative puzzle, she can be found in her studio painting.
