These Fredericton Entrepreneurs Are Developing An App To Help Newcomers Settle In N.B.
FREDERICTON – When Ali Allauddin Ajani came to Fredericton as a business immigrant, he faced hurdles in getting his business up and running. Now, he and Ben McFarlane are developing an app that will help other newcomers expedite their settlement and integration process.
The Hullo app, developed by Ajani’s IT company SyntecX, has just completed the prototyping phase and its co-founders want to have a beta version launched by August. Ajani and McFarlane are in the process of interviewing settlement organizations, the City of Fredericton, businesses and newcomers to ensure the app serves their needs.
The pair met through The Hive Incubator Program, a partnership between the provincial government and the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce. McFarlane, who owns Platinum Prose PR and Marketing, was working out of Planet Hatch, where the Hive’s training sessions took place. Ajani recently completed the Business Immigrant Mentorship Program, through which he said he met mentors who helped inform them on everything from accounting to worker safety to legal requirements.
The idea for the app stems from Ajani’s own struggles.
Last August, he brought his wife and two children from Islamabad, Pakistan, to Fredericton. He came via the provincial nominee program’s entrepreneurial stream, which gives applicants two years to get a business up and running, and invest $125,000 in it. They may get a one-year extension.
An applicant under this stream has to deposit $75,000 to the province, which the government would retain if the newcomer fails to get a business running within two years of arrival, or refunded if the newcomer doesn’t get permanent residency.
Although now the Ajanis have connections and friends, it took time to get the business up and it was tough navigating their new home, Ajani said.
“I had to start a business here and I started thinking that it’s very difficult because I don’t have any social contacts or anyone who can guide me. When you come here as an immigrant, you’re completely new to this country and you don’t have credit history…if you want to [buy] a house here, you need a mortgage,” he said.
“It happens everywhere, because when you come, you don’t know anyone and people don’t trust you, and you also want to take some time and see how people react to your ideas and how they behave. It takes time.”
The Hullo app hopes to help immigrants overcome some of these hurdles more easily and quickly.
“When somebody arrives here they’d either want help from a specific expert who can help them with a particular aspect of their newcomer journey or they want to talk to their community. In either case, we want to solve that problem of being connected to a community network,” McFarlane explains.
“Through this application, an immigrant will find a quicker way to integrate into the society and finding their solutions easily during their settlement journey,” Ajani said.
The Hullo app has two key components, a map and a chat room. Newcomers can use the map to find settlement organizations, banks, shops, certain individuals, their cultural associations and events, among other things.
They can then connect with an organization or individual through direct messaging on the app or e-mail. On the other end, the settlement, municipal and business organizations, and individuals that provide services for newcomers will get a notification if they get a new message.
Ajani and McFarlane also want newcomers to easily find their cultural communities so they can exchange experiences and get connected.
In these ways, Hullo would digitize the process of having to go to various organizations and create a one-stop shop of information for newcomers. They’re hoping this would provide newcomers more comfort in their settlement process, and allow them to “explore their new community with the help of [other] newcomers, with the help of support workers and local businesses who serve newcomers,” McFarlane said.
“You can have multiple contacts available in your mobile [phone] at your [fingertips]. You can talk to many people and get comparisons and you can decide much quicker than going to different places and spending weeks and talking to different people and finding the right solutions,” Ajani said.
So far, Hullo has received financial backing from the City of Fredericton for its prototype. The city will likely be the first adopter of the app, Ajani said.
Although right now their focus is closer to home, Ajani and McFarlane have plans to roll out the app across the province. And depending on the volume of users, there could be an opportunity to get the private funders to back them, McFarlane said.
“We want to roll it out to New Brunswick as quickly as possible. For now, in this phase of our prototype, we’re focusing on Fredericton,” McFarlane said.