Immigration is a divisive topic in the United States, especially in light of the recent election. However, Artem Goldman, a Graduate of the Silicon Valley Founder Institute, has decided to address the issue in his own way by launching Visabot, a bot that helps immigrants complete their visa applications to enter the U.S.
It’s an ambitious idea, but it’s not without its supporters. In fact, Visabot is currently competing for Product Hunt’s 2016 Bot of the Year, and already has over 370 upvotes, and counting, at the time of this writing.
Designed to provide skilled tech workers and entrepreneurs an opportunity to find success in the U.S., this artificial intelligence-powered immigration bot is currently available in beta on Facebook Messenger, and can do O-1 visa and B-2 extensions, with other visas on the way.
The visa application process is daunting, requiring applicants to complete a series of repetitive administrative tasks. However, Goldman and his team have done considerable research into typical visa protocols and have developed a unique solution. Visabot works by asking users a series of questions, fills out the requisite forms, then provides users with the instructions for sending final documents to United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS). Equipped with Fido.ai and natural language processing, Visabot becomes smarter and more intuitive over time as more users input data for analysis.
An immigrant himself, Goldman believes that immigrants are an essential part of the U.S.’s workforce, especially in the realms of technology and entrepreneurship, nor is this view without precedent; as some of the world’s biggest tech companies were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.
And while it’s easy to construe Visabot’s mission as a political statement, that’s simply not the case. Rather, Visabot aims to reduce the legal fees that come with visa for exceptional individuals and extensions for tourism or business.
Our slogan is ‘We help immigrants make America great again’, because we believe that actually America was built by immigrants, and of course it’s kind of stupid to think the problem…is too many immigrants are coming here.” - Artem Goldman (Founder/CEO, Visabot)
