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International Student Connect provides International Students with an authoritative information source along with connections in their community where they can get needed help and support. That alone makes it useful. But it is its first steps towards seamless information delivery in our sector that makes it very promising.

Let’s reconceptualize what Settlement Services are from the newcomer viewpoint, with newcomers at the centre. It’s not agencies delivering programs and services. It’s a service designed to provide Immigrants and Refugees (and increasingly those with temporary or no status) with accurate, relevant information and supports, so that they can make informed decisions about their new life in Canada and begin the integration process - including preparation before arrival.

Having responsive, automated FAQ-style information for common inquiries available 24/7 in different languages is clearly becoming more technically possible. I wonder how our sector will be able to harness (and be funded to harness, let's be honest) these potential innovations in a seamless newcomer settlement journey and service experience.

In this keynote presentation at the 2021 Pre-Arrival Virtual Conference I spoke about a future connected to our values and vision, which is not so much disruptive, but 'constructive innovation.' A future where newcomers are supported through our collaboration, using systems that help them, and us.

I like to go through Settlement-related conference program agendas for conferences I’m not attending to see what might be of interest from a digital perspective. This year’s Metropolis Conference does not disappoint. Hopefully, at least the slides from these presentations, discussion notes, summaries, as well as reports mentioned will make it on the Metropolis conference platform or be shared publicly at some point. Here are some of interest.

Putting aside the fact that the national call for proposals and resulting approval and implementation process was devastatingly chaotic, I found it useful to take a dive into the government of Canada's proactive disclosure site, focus on grants and contributions. This article includes projects I found that are digitally/tech related, which might be of interest to you.

It's true that I often write about the upside of using technology in Settlement work. I do focus heavily on ethical issues and safeguards in my writing. Perhaps I don't spend enough time sharing useful resources to help guide us in these areas. Especially resources that take a deep dive into the underbelly of the tech world to remind us that we need to be creating not just consuming technology in our work. Tactical Tech is an organization whose work you should be aware of and following. This essay is part of their Digitized Divides series, a multi-part series about technology and crisis.

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a significant aspect of how we look at digital transformation in the sector right now, too much of our focus is on AI. In this piece, I'm offering an AI-generated summary of 30 webinars (yes, 30) conducted over the past 4-5 years. The cover a broad scope of digital transformation within the settlement and immigrant-serving sector.

Immigrant and refugee-serving agencies provide important services, they also coordinate with and refer to other human service providers. Coordinating complex services can be challenging. In Windsor, Ontario, community agencies are tackling complex system navigation with the goal of creating more effective and client-centred services.