SEMO graduate student, alumnus earn second place in Missouri Pitch Competition
FOX23 News at 9 p.m.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo., (KBSI) — A Southeast Missouri State University graduate student and alumnus earned second place in the Missouri Pitch Competition for developing artificial intelligence technology designed to help hotels manage calls and reservations.
Bhavya Narula, a SEMO graduate student, and Jaimin Patel, a SEMO alumnus based in St. Louis, co-founded Afern AI, a company developing an AI-powered voice assistant for independent hotels.
The pair earned second place in the competition Sept. 18 in Sedalia, receiving up to $35,000 in engineering services funded by Amazon Web Services and provided by nClouds.
The competition gave startups five minutes to pitch their businesses, followed by four minutes of questions.
“Afern AI started with a problem I’d seen firsthand: for a hotel operating with a lean team, a missed call can mean a missed booking,” Patel said.
The company’s technology is designed to answer incoming calls, provide real-time room rates and assist with reservations without requiring hotels to install new equipment or change phone numbers.
Afern AI is already being used at Deerfield Inn and Suites in Tennessee, where the technology has handled more than 3,000 calls. According to SEMO, approximately 40% of incoming calls at the hotel previously went unanswered.
The hotel became a paying customer after testing the system.
Narula earned a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity with a minor in economics from SEMO and is pursuing a master’s degree in applied computer science.
Narula and Patel met at SEMO and became friends before launching Afern AI in January. Patel’s family has experience owning and operating hotels, giving the pair insight into staffing challenges faced by smaller properties.
“SEMO has honestly been where a lot of this started for me,” Narula said. “I’ve gotten chances here to build things, mess up, learn, compete and actually take ideas outside the classroom.”
Narula credited SEMO faculty member Dan Presson for encouraging him to develop and share his work.
Narula has also developed TrustFall, an AI-powered cybersecurity platform that originated from a SEMO hackathon and involved collaboration with university faculty, staff and students.
With support from the competition, Afern AI plans to integrate its technology with existing hotel booking systems, allowing the voice assistant to complete reservations from start to finish.
The company also plans to expand its services to additional independent hotels.
For more information about Afern AI, visit afernai.com.
