App for newcomers expanding beyond Sarnia-Lambton

New versions of a digital application that helps newcomers get settled in Sarnia-Lambton are cropping up in other Ontario communities.

“We actually launched Welcome to Kingston this week,” said Tmrrw Inc. president Liwordson Vijayabalan.

“We have a few more that are coming.”

The Sarnia tech and communications company developed and last year launched the Welcome to Lambton app for the Sarnia-Lambton Local Immigration Partnership (LIP), designed to help newcomers connect with local services via checklists and an eight-language translation service.

“Before we even built it, we actually met with a bunch of other (local immigration partnerships) in the province, and they were all ‘Hey we would really love something like that as well,’” Vijayabalan said.

Funding and maintenance were issues, he said.

“So, that got us thinking about how we bridge that gap.”

The solution is a platform with multiple apps from the same centralized database, he said.

The company recently announced it’s received $100,000 from social finance program Verge Capital, and is seeking up to $400,000 more from angel investors and venture capitalists for development and marketing.

“We want to get to economies of scale … ​​so that we can get to 100-plus (apps) across North America quite rapidly,” Vijayabalan said.

A new software company, Welcome Platform Technologies, has been created to manage the apps, including updates within the next 12 months for better translation, via artificial intelligence, and community networking, he said.

“There will be a bit of a migration, but then Lambton will benefit from all the new features they’re building,” he said, noting TMRRW Inc. continues to cover the maintenance and update costs for the Sarnia-Lambton app.

TMRRW Inc. will retain a “substantial stake” in Welcome Platform Technologies, but a new team will be hired to run it and take over within the next year, he said.

The apps are expected to help foster inclusivity, said Verge Capital program lead Filsan Farah.

“It’s impossible to overstate the instrumental role Welcome Platform will play in making Southwestern Ontario and, at large, Canada a more welcoming place for newcomers, Farah said in a release.

Sarnia-Lambton’s app, built with federal funding via the immigration partnership, and with Tmrrw Inc. funding the remainder, has been “pretty well” used, Vijayabalan said.

“It’s a bit too early to tell the long-term use case and has this actually changed people’s lives,” he said.

But he’s seen the impact helping newcomers get settled can have, he said.

He, his mother and siblings arrived in Sarnia from Toronto, fleeing domestic violence, when he was three years old, he said.

“We lived in poverty,” he said. “We didn’t have any connections. We didn’t have anyone, and my mom didn’t even know English.”

It took time, but after the family got settled in their apartment, his mother would help other women and their families from the Indian and Sri Lankan community also fleeing domestic violence from the Toronto area, Vijayabalan said.

“They would actually stay with us and my mom would connect them to schooling and getting them a doctor… finding transportation and showing them around town.” he said, noting his mom’s actions also helped inspire the Welcome to Lambton app.

“Our struggle was years and years and years, but my mom was able to fast-track the lives of these women who sometimes spent months at our (apartment) with their kids,” Vijayabalan said.

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