Ai helps cancer support

After a year in the making, Cancer Central has launched an online platform which looks to intelligently signpost people affected by cancer to organizations who can provide advice and products.

The platform, called Ave, is powered by IBM Watson, one of the World’s leading artificial intelligence systems.  

With Ave, people affected by cancer will be able to use conversational search to find relevant information while the platform continuously improves thanks to its machine-learning capabilities.

In essence, Ave is a search engine that uses artificial intelligence to deliver proactive and personalized data real-time and is differentiated from other chabots in that it knows when to search for an answer from a knowledge base or when to ask for clarity, making it very easy to use.

However to deliver such targeted outcomes, Ave needs data. Avril Chester explains ” the challenge is finding these incredible businesses and charities who support individuals affected by cancer, but do not appear on a single list”. So Cancer Central is seeking help to find organizations to register for free so that they can be found easily in a user’s time of need.

Any organisations wishing to add their details to the service can do so on the website: https://www.cancercentral.org.uk/initRegisterProvider.jsf 

In taking time to reflect on the journey so far, Avril said “with our first iteration live, it is beyond my wildest dreams” and “I am so incredibly grateful for all the support and help received” as this couldn’t have been achieved without over 10,000 hours being donated by 100+ individuals and 20+ organizations with major contributions from TechFINIUM and ROQ. This really speaks to the ethos of Cancer Central… connecting different fields across industries to achieve a common vision.

But with this said, Avril is not resting on laurels and therefore again partnering with volunteers to “understand valuable feedback” with the objective being to understand the good, what to change, where to go next and ultimately what the roadmap for 2019 should be in order to continue supporting those affected by cancer.  


Cancer Central is looking for businesses and charities who support those affected by cancer to register on the site for free so that they can be found easily in time of need.

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