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Report on the way how the progress of information and communication technology facilitates immigrant integration
Mariana Andrei - Communication Coordinator
20 October 2014
Migration Policy Institute (MPI) launched in September 2014 a report called „Smart Inclusive Cities: How New Apps, Big Data, and Collaborative Technologies Are Transforming Immigrant Integration”. The core idea of the paper is that the spread of smartphones and generally of cellphones with high-speed Internet access and geolocation technology is not only transforming urban life but is also modifying the immigrant integration process.
Meghan Benton, the author of the report, has analysed the way how smartphones and mobile applications offer opportunities for immigrant integration. For disadvantaged populations, accessing city services through a smartphone can help overcome language barriers and thus increase interactions with the public system. Smartphones are also useful for those with a lower level of language skills, who thus have access to language training anywhere and at any time. A new series of social and civic applications offers tools designed to reach people, including newly arrived immigrant groups.
The report underlines however that although these digital developments offer opportunities in certain areas of immigrant integration, the smartphones' and apps’ potential to address social and civic participation problems should not be overstated.
This report was commissioned for the eleventh plenary meeting of MPI's Transatlantic Council on Migration, which focused on how cities and regions can more fully valorise the benefits of immigration.
Source: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/smart-inclusive-cities-new-apps-big-data-and-collaborative-technologies
Meghan Benton, the author of the report, has analysed the way how smartphones and mobile applications offer opportunities for immigrant integration. For disadvantaged populations, accessing city services through a smartphone can help overcome language barriers and thus increase interactions with the public system. Smartphones are also useful for those with a lower level of language skills, who thus have access to language training anywhere and at any time. A new series of social and civic applications offers tools designed to reach people, including newly arrived immigrant groups.
The report underlines however that although these digital developments offer opportunities in certain areas of immigrant integration, the smartphones' and apps’ potential to address social and civic participation problems should not be overstated.
This report was commissioned for the eleventh plenary meeting of MPI's Transatlantic Council on Migration, which focused on how cities and regions can more fully valorise the benefits of immigration.
Source: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/smart-inclusive-cities-new-apps-big-data-and-collaborative-technologies
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