In addition to his studies, Sarujan Mathimaran works as a student secretary in Wiersholm. At this weekend’s Legal Hackathon, he won the «Best performing solution» category together with a team he had never met before.

Out of two main categories (facilitating access to law and making law more efficient), his team chose facilitating access to law. Several members of the team had a foreign background, and with ethnically non-Norwegian parents, they were well aware of how difficult it can be to understand Norwegian law. This is particularly a problem for newcomers to Norway because of their poor knowledge of the language. It can take hours to get through to UDI (the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration) on the telephone, and the demand for assistance from organisations like NOAS (the Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers) and Jussbuss (a free legal aid clinic run by students) is extreme. Two of the lawyers on the team had previously worked with immigration law and had practical experience with these problems.

Sarujan’s team therefore developed a communication solution that will make it easier for foreigners and newcomers to Norway to understand their rights. The purpose is to make the processing of cases regarding residence permit, family reunion, etc. as fair as possible by making people aware of their rights.

The solution consists of several parts: First, there is a chatbot that is programmed to communicate in the user’s own language and answer the most frequently asked questions. Further, there is an e-mail function that makes it possible to communicate by e-mail to the chatbot in one’s own mother tongue, so that there will be a thread of questions and conversations. Since it is a major problem that refugees, and particularly those under age, are illiterate, there is also a function similar to Siri, by which it is possible to speak one’s own language and the bot will answer in your language.

The idea is that this can be implemented on the web site of e.g. UDI, NAV (the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration), NOAS etc. The content of the bot can also later be adjusted and implemented on the web site of e.g. the Ombudsman and others where the demand is high. That means that it will only be necessary to contact “customer service” regarding the processing and implementation of applications and not to ask simple questions. This may eventually also make public administration more efficient.

We congratulate Sarujan on his fantastic achievement and are proud to have fresh-thinking and dedicated employees like Sarujan in Wiersholm.

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