ConnenSlate

Connecting on-call interpreters with refugees and immigrants in Canada for better accessing essential services in their own language.

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Inspiration

Back in 2017, one of the team members was stopped in the middle of the street by a Syrian refugee holding his little daughters’ hands, and he asked “Do you speak Arabic?”(in Arabic), then he showed a piece of paper with a clinic address and she explained to him how to get there, she offered to go with them but he refused so she wrote her number on a piece of paper and gave it to him. An hour later, she got a call from the clinic asking her to help in translating and communicating with the man, which appeared to be something related to his sick daughter. This incident inspired ConnenSlate App, which addresses the struggles that accompany the refugees and immigrants experience in Canada. Every person has the right to be heard and to have a proper presentation in an impartial decision-making process, however, this process is usually hindered because of the language barrier between the person and the partial decision-maker.

What it does

(conn)ect+tran(slate)=ConnenSlate

ConnenSlate connects on-call interpreters with refugees, immigrants, and newcomers in Canada for better accessing essential services in their own language. The core features of our app consider two types of users, User A for the interpreter, and User B for the newcomer. User A can receive interpretation requests, access a calendar with appointments and/or specify available hours, and can Join a call/chat with a user. User B can sends/or schedules an interpretation request, can specify the needed area of interpretation, and the app’s language is set in their native language they select. The general features of the app include an onboarding assessment for better matching services, support Audio/ Video/ Texting interpretation for accessibility inclusion, and Include a rating/and reviews system.

How we built it

The team first met to develop the users’ personas and the possible scenarios and challenges we need to address, then we designed the user flows with some wireframing to give to our mobile developer. We designed the UI screens in Figma, and wrote the front-end in Flutter.

Challenges we ran into

One of the challenges we ran into while doing the UX, was considering two different types of users and designing two separate user flows for both. Also, one of our team members, who was a mobile developer, left in the middle of the project. This put more load on our only mobile developer.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of doing so much research in so little time, and despite one of our team members leaving, we still got the MVP done. We are also proud of taking the initiative in developing this humanitarian idea to support newcomers and lessen their struggles even if it’s by a little bit.

What we learned

We learned so much from doing the UX research, we learned about the Canadian government newcomers’ integration programs and their fundings, we also learned about different business models while developing the commercial values for our application.

Business Viability

Our prototype follows the “Sharing Economy Model”, which is an economic model defined as a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform that brings together services owners and seekers of these services and facilitates all processes between them.

We would like to add premium features to the app, which will give it commercial value. Some of the features we would like to consider:

  • The newcomer gets 60 min. of free interpretation every week, buying more time is a premium feature.
  • Features to get English and/or French classes by tutors who speak their native languages.
  • Financial/Legal/Immigration advice in their native languages.
  • Translating documents.
  • Allowing ads by local ethnic businesses in the newcomer’s area.

In addition, the Canadian government has launched few initiatives to support newcomers and help them succeed in their new lives. This includes a new $100 million initiative that funds settlement programs of the Canadian government which targets immigrants; and the Resettlement Assistance Program, which funds initiatives that aim at integrating refugees and immigrants.

What's next for ConnenSlate

In addition to adding premium features to the app, which will give it commercial value, we also would like to consider solutions to ensure trust and confidentiality for sensitive and non-trivial daily services.

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