Overview
The Challenge: Citizens in Timor-Leste face significant barriers when accessing government services. Information is scattered across multiple departments, often available only in Portuguese, and requires time-consuming office visits. When citizens finally arrive at government offices, they are frequently turned away due to incomplete documentation—wasting valuable time and resources.
Why This Matters: As Timor-Leste prepares for ASEAN membership, modernizing government service delivery is essential. TIC Timor I.P. plans to implement AI initiatives in government by 2026, making this an ideal time to demonstrate local capacity for AI innovation.
Our Solution: Ajuda Digital is an AI-powered government assistant providing 24/7 multilingual support for Timorese citizens. Built by young Timorese developers, it features 10 specialized AI assistants covering every major government department. Citizens can ask questions in Tetum, Portuguese, or English and receive instant, accurate guidance about required documents and procedures.
Solution
Core Technology: Ajuda Digital combines SEA-LION (primary LLM) with AWS Bedrock Titan Embeddings for document retrieval, creating a hybrid architecture optimized for Southeast Asian languages and government services.
Key Features:
- 10 Specialized Government Models: Civil Registry & Identity, Immigration & Travel, Business & Commerce, Legal & Constitutional, Education, Elections, Health, Finance, Land & Property, and Employment
- Innovative Data Collection: Automated processing using AWS Textract, OCR from office boards, web scraping, and SEA-LION-powered translation
- Production Infrastructure: Amazon ECS with Fargate, PostgreSQL + pgvector, S3 storage, and CloudWatch monitoring
- First-of-Its-Kind: First government service offering comprehensive Tetum language support, built by local youth for local needs
- Current Status: 4 Active Models (Civil Registry, Immigration, Business, Legal)
- 🔧 6 Models In Development
Conclusion
What We’ve Achieved: Ajuda Digital has transformed from concept to production in three months, creating Timor-Leste’s first comprehensive AI-powered government platform with 4 operational models.
Next Steps: Complete all 10 models, establish official government partnership, and position as the flagship demonstration for TIC Timor I.P.’s 2026 AI implementation.
Our Vision: By 2027, every Timorese citizen with internet access will have instant, accurate government information in their own language. We’re proving that Timorese youth can build world-class AI solutions for our nation’s challenges.
About the Team
Team Members:
Jedinilda Serafines – Team Member
Our Mission: We believe every citizen deserves instant access to government information in their own language. Ajuda Digital proves that Timorese youth can build world-class AI solutions for our nation’s challenges—we’re not waiting for solutions to be built for us.