The Switchboard Confluence event in June 2025 brought together technology innovators and refugee resettlement professionals to reimagine newcomer support through emerging technologies. Participants shared practical tools, techniques, and examples of how ethical and affordable technologies can address current resettlement challenges, with an emphasis on reaching and serving clients who are not located in proximity to services and resources.
The event engaged service providers and partners looking to leverage technology—from everyday tools like smartphones and apps to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR)— to address the challenges of the current moment.
Reaching Hard-to-Reach Clients through Information Services Best Practices
You don’t need to be located in the same place as clients to help point them in the direction of useful services, resources, and reminders. This session explored how trusted apps, social media, and other virtual tools support the sharing of accurate information to harder-to-reach communities. Speakers discussed effective community engagement, emphasize the role of trusted messengers, and highlight practical tools that participants can begin using immediately in their work.
Solutions in Community Resource Mapping
In this session, providers in the field shared examples of how technology can be used to help newcomers navigate, access, and contribute to available resources in their community. Switchboard showcased its virtual community resource mapping and referral initiative, Switchboard Community Support Line, as an example of an existing, national-level resource that providers can access immediately. Additional speakers from service providers currently participating in Switchboard’s certificate course on a related topic. These participants are working on developing new digital products and interfaces to fill gaps in service delivery in their cities and states. Breakout groups discussed resource gaps in their own locations and ideas for addressing them through cost-efficient technology.
Beyond the Code: Responsible Technology for Refugee Resilience
As technology becomes increasingly embedded in humanitarian response, the challenge is no longer just about designing innovative tools but about ensuring they are responsibly implemented, contextually relevant, and sustainable in the field. In this keynote, Hisham Zawil, Head of Tech and Digital Partnerships at UNHCR, explored how the United Nations Refugee Agency is navigating the complex intersection of innovation, ethics, and impact. This keynote offered a grounded, forward-looking perspective on how the resettlement sector can move beyond techno-solutionism, drawing on best practices and frameworks like the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI. The session emphasized the importance of ethical and community-driven innovation.
Moral Imagination: From Smart to Wise AI
Is “smart” technology the ultimate goal? Can we design and deploy artificial intelligence in ways that move us from “smart” to “wise” technology? If so, how can we measure this shift and apply wise methods to protect vulnerable populations? Drawing upon his Solutions Scholarship approach at the AI Ethics Lab at Rutgers, Dr. Nathan C. Walker reframed AI ethics as a generative practice, one that not only upholds the principle of nonmaleficence (do no harm) but also affirms beneficence (the commitment to do good). His keynote challenged the moral distance in ethical decision-making at every stage of the #AI lifecycle and call for active engagement from all stakeholders, whether resettlement caseworkers, volunteers in community-based organizations, or leaders of refugee service agencies. Dr. Walker applied frameworks like the AI & Human Rights Index and the practice of “sustained ethical decision-making” across the development, design, deployment, and monitoring of AI. He advocates for using technology not just to be smart but to foster collective wisdom, resilience, self-reliance, and a common good across borders and generations.
Building Self-Sufficiency with AI
This session explored themes from Switchboard’s recently published guide on Using AI in Service Delivery: A Framework to Evaluate Organizational Readiness and the AI Odyssey website. Resettlement providers handle a variety of daily tasks, including documenting cases in multiple languages, matching clients with limited housing options, analyzing program data, and coordinating time-sensitive services. Artificial intelligence tools can streamline these tasks, helping both providers and clients achieve specific goals. This panel discussion will explore how AI tools can support information services and training for newcomers, emphasizing how to safely use this emerging technology.
Delivering Virtual Services with Limited Resources
This panel considered how fundamental ideas of “service delivery” in resettlement may be reshaped to meet the demands and opportunities of the moment. It explored promising models and prototypes for virtual case management in various formats and actionable ways you can integrate these models in the work you do.
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