Cyrenians launched the Ask Alex digital campaign in 2017 to raise awareness of issues around youth homelessness and conflict at home. Alex is a Facebook Messenger ‘bot’ who answers questions about how he became homeless, his work situation, life in a B&B, family and friend relationships, hopes for the future and his favourite football team.

Laura created the character of Alex based on vignettes given by young men who were or had been facing the same issues as Alex. She then wrote a large script database filled with hundreds of questions and responses for the app. Scottish agency Primate took the script and programmed it into the bot using a tool called wit.ai.