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How Chatbots Could Support New Migrant Integration
How Chatbots Could Support New Migrant Integration
At the end of March, the 2026 Build a Bridge Program and competition wrapped up with a showcase of the final competing student teams. The eight week program provided participants from across the Bridging Divides University network with hands-on training, interdisciplinary experience and the chance to develop practical digital tools aimed at removing barriers for new migrants.
The BridgeQuest team: (Left to right) Augustine Farinola, Shreya Dasoju and Sean Nguyen.
Among the winning participants was University of Alberta researcher Augustine Farinola.
Augustine is a graduate researcher in philosophy and digital humanities working with Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Geoffrey Rockwell. Augustine and teammates, Sean Nguyen and Shreya Dasoju, received the Place, Infrastructure, Citizenship and Participation Award for their innovative game simulation of immigrants experience powered by Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) driven multi chat bot project.
Augustine signed up for Build a Bridge partially to learn from scholars from other Bridging Divides themes and disciplines, but also because he felt his background in philosophy and digital humanities has given him a unique perspective.
“How do we solve technical and existential [problems] as humanities too, in a way that will uniquely be different from the way maybe people in computer science or engineering would? Because we'll be able to see some theoretical ideas that we have about what it means to be human, to be ethical, to engage with societal needs.”
For Augustine, the workshops presented a perspective of experience of new migrants that is different from what he encounters in his work.
Before this program, Augustine has been making extensive textual analysis of YouTube comments on Canadian immigration. He has found that the online discourse surrounding migrants only offers a single story of immigrants' experience and value in Canada.
“I've been seeing immigrants being presented as problems to a large number of people,” says Augustine. “So immigrants are taking jobs, they're not following our rules, they're destroying our culture.”
Attending workshops that focused on the positive impacts and valuable skillsets new migrants bring to Canada highlighted the lack of content highlighting contributions and the need to provide sufficient support for their integration.
Augustine Farinola presenting BridgeQuest.
“[What] I didn't see on social media, people or politicians or videos of people talking about, look at how these immigrants have done these wonderful things. Look at a certain number of sectors that their needs have reduced because of these doctors we have; or look at this software, or these things that have been built and set up to make life easier for everyone.”
Augustine also noted how these negative comments affect new migrants' well-being.
“They come online maybe to post or to talk about what they're going through and whatever, and they just face people [saying] go back home.”
Based on this perspective, Augustine and team chose to base their AI-driven Minimum Viable Products (MVP) on improving the experiences of migrants in adapting to life in a new country.
“I started thinking about, what would happen if I'm just a fresh immigrant in this kind of an anti-immigration society? And how would I feel? What will I need?”
Creating BridgeQuest
Creating BridgeQuest
Built within a scenario driven simulation game BridgeQuest, Augustine developed their two chat bots to address two different needs. One chat bot acts as companion or friend with shared experiences.
Augustine created several different “personas” for the player to choose from so the player can pick a companion that has similar lived experiences or is from the same country.
The second bot acts as an immigration consultant that can sift through thousands of immigration relevant policies and legal documents to provide legal guidance.
Augustine manually compiled and fed the bots relevant data, legal documents, journals and more and trained the bots to respond to inquiries.
The game demonstrates how tools like the chat bots could help new migrants navigate common situations. The player plays as a new migrant that must navigate different scenarios. Several stamina bars represent “resources:” financial health, stress, social capital, legal risk and career momentum. These resources are impacted by different scenarios and actions.
During the game, the two chat bots provide personal and legal support and guidance for the player. The gameplay highlights the toll finding necessary information can take on new migrants who might not have access to resources like a companion or immigration consultant.
Takeaways
Takeaways
Augustine praises the Build Bridge competition for pushing competitors to understand and mobilize their research through a different lens.
“The Bridge a Bridge program is designed in a way that helps not just building things, but also building things that matter and that will resolve problems. [The program] tries to make participants think about the relationship between research and the industry, but also about the needs of the people.”
Learning to market a product was another highlight of Augustine’s experience.
“You're not the only one that can write code or that has ideas, but it's about pitch. How do you present this? How do you convince people?”
Augustine also credits his supervisors Professor Rockwell and Professor Yasmin Abu-Laban as well as the PechaKucha style short presentation opportunities at the U of A Bridging Divides socials with teaching him how to communicate his research and providing opportunities to recieve valuable feedback.
“It's not just my idea alone. A lot of inputs and, oh, how do you protect this from this? And it's like, this is my home where you think of an idea and your family members are giving a lot of suggestions.”
Augustine encourages prospective students to get involved with Build a Bridge and the Bridging Divides project as a whole.
“It's not about winning. It's about what you have become after the Build a Bridge. Bridging Divides has a way that they are forming us through this framework. The most important thing is to get signed up and be accepted and learn.”
You can try BridgeQuest for yourself from the website: https://www.bridgequest.ca/
For more information on this year's Build a Bridge program and the winners you can head over to https://www.torontomu.ca/bridging-divides/news-and-events/news/2026/04/students-present-ai-driven-solutions-for-migrant-integration/
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