During AI020, OpenIris stood out with a clear mission: making communication between governments and citizens significantly more accessible through AI. Founders Mairen Zeevenhoven and Pepijn van Diepen are building a voice solution for people who are often excluded from existing systems.
The idea emerged less than a year ago when Mairen participated in a program at Startup Village in Amsterdam. “In the beginning, you’re mainly exploring where the market and society truly have a need,” Mairen explains. This approach quickly revealed that communication in the public sector is a major bottleneck. In April, Pepijn joined as co-founder after a nine-year career at payments giant Adyen. Having seen the company grow from 300 to 4,500 employees, Pepijn felt the need to work in a smaller team with a clear focus on social impact. “For me, it wasn’t about the money,” Pepijn says. “Mairen and I immediately connected through our shared drive to create real social impact. We believe that a healthy business and social value can go perfectly hand in hand.”
How are you closing the current communication gap in society?
“The need is enormous because a large group of people struggles with complex bureaucratic language or digital systems. Around 25% of people in the Netherlands have difficulty communicating above B1 level, and in addition, a large group of migrant workers simply doesn’t speak Dutch or English. They are currently excluded from the system. At the same time, governments and municipalities simply don’t have enough staff in their customer contact centers to assist everyone by phone. Our digital voice assistants solve this.
How does it work?
We deliberately chose the telephone as our channel because almost everyone can make a phone call, immediately removing a major barrier. Users call a number, ask their question in their own language, and receive an immediate answer in clear, easy-to-understand language. After the conversation, they automatically receive a text message with a summary, including the correct links or contact details so they can take action right away.
Although the technology can be applied broadly, we are currently focusing specifically on migrant workers. At the moment, there is simply not enough institutional support in place for this group. These people often don’t know what rights they have or where they can find help. If we can bridge that gap, we can make a real impact.”
How do you ensure that the AI remains reliable and secure for governments?
“Reliability and privacy are the absolute foundations of our platform. Because we work with governments, our system is fully anonymized and designed in accordance with the strictest AI regulations. In addition, we use a so-called RAG system (Retrieval-Augmented Generation). This means that the AI only draws information from a predefined and verified database belonging to the specific municipality or public organization. We explicitly do not provide advice; we provide reliable, factual information. If a question falls outside the available scenarios, the AI does not hallucinate. Instead, it has been trained to honestly state that it doesn’t know the answer and immediately refer the caller to a human employee.
Technology, however, is only part of the solution. We recently organized a hackathon with behavioral scientists from the University of Amsterdam to better understand the psychology of our target audience. Imagine a vulnerable migrant worker whose passport has been confiscated by an exploitative employer. Such a person is understandably fearful and distrustful. How do you reach them? That’s why we’re not rolling this out purely through digital channels, but in close collaboration with local networks such as Polish or Bulgarian supermarkets, churches, and existing municipal support centers. We want to complement existing support services, not replace them.”
What does winning the AI020 pitch competition mean for the future of OpenIris?
“People often don’t dislike AI because it’s AI, but because many existing chatbots and automated phone menus simply don’t work very well. That’s why our focus is obsessively on quality: conversations must feel natural and intuitive. Once that works, adoption will follow naturally. Thanks to winning AI020, we’ve had a flying start. We’ve earned a direct opportunity to pitch our product to the CTO of the City of Amsterdam. For a diverse city with hundreds of different cultures, our tool is incredibly valuable. A government letter is currently one-way communication: you can’t ask it clarifying questions. Voice AI makes that communication interactive and allows people to receive step-by-step explanations at their own pace and in their own language.
What does succes mean for OpenIris?
For us, success means preventing people from getting into serious trouble because they couldn’t understand bureaucracy. If we can prevent even one person from ending up sleeping under a bridge because of miscommunication, we’ve already succeeded. But we remain pragmatic entrepreneurs: our first concrete milestone is surviving the next six months, expanding our network, and successfully launching our product with our first decision-makers.”
Call to the ecosystem (and language enthusiasts)
Together, the OpenIris team speaks around four languages, but to properly support the largest migrant communities in the Netherlands, more help is needed. Do you speak Polish, Bulgarian, Romanian, or Ukrainian fluently? OpenIris is looking for native speakers to join its testing panel and thoroughly verify the quality of its language and voice interactions.
Are you a public organization or municipality? If you see a concrete use case for this technology within your organization, you’re always welcome to get in touch and discuss the possibilities.
Interested in helping OpenIris test its technology or exploring a collaboration? Send an email directly to: [email protected] or [email protected]
Read also
