Category: innovation

Someone recently asked me how I do what I do to stay on top of, curate, and share information in the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector. I realized that my strategy hasn't actually changed that much in over 17 years. Sources and tools, yes. But not the overall approach I continue to use today. I thought I'd share what I wrote back.

I was going through upcoming conference agendas, curious about what tech, hybrid, innovation-related sessions there might be. If you're curious too, I've compiled a list with descriptions and presenters from the Metropolis and AAISA conferences, and P2P's post-conference webinar series.

In June 2000, I was part of a discussion looking at what our community might look like in 20 years. I think what I said still fits for today and how we should approach technology in our work in social and human services.

Four years ago I took a stab at outlining what I think the future of immigrant/refugee settlement work is. It's 33 minutes of my sense of the future of settlement work and all the moving parts and connections. I think it's still very relevant and part of the conversation we need to be having as a sector.

Despite the importance of immigrants for the Canadian economy and national identity, it remains to be seen if immigrants are engaged in the development of policies, services and technological tools that impact them. This article suggests that they should be included and engaged.

You’ve probably seen people post about the latest AI media darling, the AI chatbot ChatGPT. AI is here, is coming, will impact our work, all of that. So it makes sense to try things out from time to time, to see how they can actually help our work. I’ve done that previously. And, when I saw Andrew Griffith try it out on immigration and citizenship questions, with good responses, I decided to try it out on digital inclusion questions.

Imagine, an organization that provides support and solutions made up of peers who understand you, your work, and your sector? It's the right solution for any and all non-profits. AlphaPlus offers that for Ontario literacy providers. Why not for the Immigrant and Refugee-serving sector?

I recently shared episode of my Technology in Human Services podcast where I speak with Meenakshi (Meena) Das about not just focusing on AI, but Human-centric AI. It generated some great comments from a couple of people working on AI projects in their organizations, building on and adding to Meenakshi’s insights, which I wanted to share here.

Refugee 613's 2021 Digital Messaging Summit was a dynamic interactive gathering bringing practitioners together to share and learn practical strategies and advice about managing digital messaging services by and for immigrants and refugees and build a network of people working in this area.