Compass pilot project hopes to build social infrastructure

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on March 11, 2022.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The process of accessing social support can be confusing involving multiple agencies and different requirements, but with the help of a new platform the process might become a bit smoother.
As previously announced by the City, Lethbridge has become one of three alpha sites in the Compass pilot project led by Helpseeker Technologies.
Helpseeker Technologies co-founder and co-president Alina Turner said the project is about building a social infrastructure that will take care of the expanding population’s needs. She said it is similar to taking care of the physical infrastructure of a growing city like adding roads for people to be able to navigate it.
The new platform’s goal is to improve how people access, operate and fund social supports. While creating a bridge to connect those looking for social support, service providers and decision makers and for the city of Lethbridge that means digital access to more than 6,000 services.
“What’s the social infrastructure of cities? how do we make sure that people are doing well in society and we’re taking care of each other in the right way in these cities that were building?” said Turner.
She said the idea is to make sure developing cities like Lethbridge have the social infrastructure building blocks today, so when they do become a million people city, in maybe 50 years they actually have a plan on how to take care of their social issues with an expanded population.
“Social infrastructure planning is something that’s relatively new, so we don’t have very good data on how to do it, we don’t have very good strategies on how to do it and we haven’t really used technology to help us figure it out,” said Turner
But she said that today’s technology is so powerful that they would be remiss to not think about how digital technology can support this social infrastructure planning today for the city of tomorrow. She said that is what Compass is figuring out.
Turner said they picked Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Edmonton as their Alpha sites, because they have different sizes and demographics. She added that the relationship with First Nations that Lethbridge has is important to the project as Medicine Hat does not have a relationship with them.
“A centre that is a million people it’s going to be completely different compared to a regional centre like Lethbridge and again completely different than a 50,000-60,000 population such as Medicine Hat,” said Turner.
She said the municipalities are critical to the project’s success and therefore it was very important for the mayors of the newly named alpha sites to be on board.
“This is going to happen in their backyards, they need to be seeing how this connects to their vision of the city of tomorrow too,” said Turner.
And for Lethbridge that vision includes the City’s Community Wellbeing and Safety Strategy, which will benefit from this project.
The project is led by HelpSeeker and in partnership with Microsoft, Digital Technology Supercluster, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Corsac Technologies and the University of Toronto Centre for Social Services Engine.
The project has a total investment of $4.9 million, with $2.9 million invested by industry and $2 million co-invested by the Government of Canada.

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