We are proud of our internship program, which gives students from UMass campuses the opportunity to gain hands-on business experience across all areas of the UMass President’s Office Administration and Finance functions.
This summer, six Access interns took on an exciting challenge: a chatbot proof-of-concept competition to explore how AI could help the Access team connect with campus stakeholders and partners and enhance the tier 1 support we provide.
Over a few weeks, the interns, divided into two assigned teams, worked together to design a concept, build a business case, and develop a chatbot prototype. From the beginning, both groups approached the project with curiosity, collaboration, and a focus on solving real challenges faced by the Access team.
Team B consisted of interns Mhammed Mrabet, Salini Thiraviyarajah, and Pragathi Kempegowda. They created Access Buddy Jr., a chatbot for new hires, interns, current Access employees, and potential future team members. The bot streamlined new staff onboarding, covering key tools, acronym decoding, and first-week tasks, while also acting as a quick resource finder for documents, file paths, and essential links. With features like exploration mode, interactive learning, and a centralized knowledge hub.
Team A comprised of interns Victoria Nault, Aditya Wanve, and Carissa Dwyer. They developed Rookie Bot, a supplier-facing assistant that automates common procurement lookups. It retrieves payment details, supplier registration status, contract information, and request statuses. The bot handles single and multiple matches, provides clear error messages with UPST contact information, and can answer free-form procurement questions. Rookie Bot could reduce response times and improve accuracy by managing repetitive requests.
We are grateful to our interns for their innovation and dedication, not only in this project but in the contributions they make every day to help us deliver the best support and service to colleagues across UMass. Congratulations to you all!