Compass
Increasing the speed, fairness, and efficiency of social support options for community members, service providers, and funders through a social transformation platform leveraging AI.
Project Overview
Updated March 31, 2023
The Problem
Every year, over $380 billion is invested to support Canadians’ social needs including housing, mental health, addictions, income, and employment supports. Based on HelpSeeker’s case study communities, the introduction of this new platform could save $114 to $190 billion of this investment and be redeployed for greater frontline impact to tackle pressing issues from a holistic, person-centered perspective.
When people seek social supports, they are in need of the right help, often derived from multiple service providers, fast. Within our current fragmented social response model, the planning, decision-making, and coordination of support often fails, leaving people with a feeling of being de-humanized and “lost in the system”.
How We Are Solving It
Led by HelpSeeker in collaboration with Microsoft, Corsac Technologies and the University of Toronto Centre for Social Services Engineering, the Compass project will deliver a technology platform that offers a real-time approach to aligning the needs of individuals, service providers, and policy makers in the social services sector. Clients of social services will have a humanized experience tailored to their unique needs replacing the current top-down, fragmented social services model. This platform will leverage AI and Machine Learning models to streamline the experience of those looking for help and provide better insights for those delivering or funding these supports. This platform will seamlessly integrate the interactions of three target audiences within the social sector: help seekers, service providers, and decision-makers.
For help seekers in need of social support, Compass connects them to the right help, fast – while generating information on the needs of a community.
For organizations and professionals serving people in need of social support, Compass ensures better service planning, coordination, and delivery to maximize client outcomes and community impact.
For those in decision-making roles as funders and policy makers, Compass supports evidence-based and data-led responses on complex social issues.
The Compass platform will be co-developed, implemented and validated through community partnerships with the City of Lethbridge, Medicine Hat Community Housing Society and Homeward Trust in Edmonton, as well as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Beyond Canada, a scaled Compass platform will transform the planning, delivery and impact of social sector services globally. ‘
The Result
This project developed the world’s first modular platform, Kompas, a comprehensive social safety net transformation solution that streamlines the process for service providers, systems planners and those looking for help. The platform connects people to support, optimizes their service delivery and generates actionable insights for service providers with holistic systems view for decision making. The project developed new ways to transform the social safety net by utilizing artificial intelligence and data through the Compass ontology. The technology has seen adoption from various organizations including federal and provincial governments, and over 3,000 social safety net service providers to provide data-driven insights to inform decision-making in social services and funding.
Project Lead
Project Partners
-
"Unleashing our social responses to meet current and future challenges requires technology innovation to allow us to address the root causes of societal challenges. Compass is the project to build this technology foundation that will underpin effective solutions to the world's complex social challenges,"
Co-Founder, HelpSeeker Technologies -
“Every person deserves easy and simple access to social supports, especially during times when they’re needed the most. Projects like Compass demonstrate the importance of technology and the role that cloud and artificial intelligence play in reducing barriers to critical services and empowering the lives of Canadians."
National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada