UNBeknownst Podcast Episode 36
Social and technology entrepreneur Tosin Ajibola (MTME’20) moved from Nigeria to Canada to earn a master of engineering degree in technology management and entrepreneurship from UNB. Out of that hands-on program, he and other newcomer classmates co-developed Welkom-U, an innovative online platform that puts newcomers, immigrants, and international students in touch with the things they need to survive and thrive. As CEO of Welkom-U, Tosin is focused on solving problems through technology AND making a social impact.
He is a member of the Atlantic Growth Solutions team, and he serves on the board of Venn Innovation, on the board of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce and on the advisory board at Social Enterprise World Forum. He also leads the Atlantic Canada Chapter of BlackBoysCode, a non-profit organization that aims to improve the future of young black boys through computer science and technology. And he’s been getting noticed: he was named a Top 30 under 30 Innovator in Atlantic Canada in 2021, a Top 25 Canadian Immigrant in 2022 & Top Youth Immigrant in Canada 2022.
Host Katie Davey catches up with Tosin while he was visiting family back home in Lagos, Nigeria to chat about challenges for newcomers to Canada and how he’s using technology as a solution.
Listen to the episode
Highlights from the episode
Katie: What was your experience moving to a new country? Was it what you expected?
Tosin: I tell a lot of people this, you can almost never be too prepared for it because it's a brand new life. You leave your friends, you leave your family, you leave a lot of the different things that you’re used to, even food. So, there's a learning process and sometimes it can be very overwhelming. I had a lot of help and I'm grateful for all the help that I had trying to settle down in. It was good because there are a lot of really nice people – I mean, Fredericton, frankly, has my heart right now because so many people made it a lot easier for me to transition into the city, into the culture.
Katie: How are people using your business, Welkom-U?
Tosin: The last year has actually been somewhat of a restructuring phase for us because the first two years of operation, we realized that, yes, we're trying to help newcomers settle in, but there's a lot of information that is also required, from identity, social identity, to financial identity. Because there’s some level of risk attached to doing business with the newcomer that doesn't have, maybe a credit score history in Canada. So the last two years, we were able to do some of this verification, starting with Nigeria and India. We noticed that so many people, so many Canadian companies, want to work with newcomers, but they need to establish an identity here first. Newcomers were struggling for the first two or three months, so what we did was build the products that help verify social and financial profile in your home country. We find all that history and we're able to translate that through models that we're able to build in-house to the Canadian standard and give some form of guarantee to landlords, employers, banks, etc. This year we had three customers able to close on houses.
Now, Welkom-U has three pillars: the first pillar being identifying who these newcomers are. The second is helping them settle, and the final one is making sure they're still within the community and understand more around what the Canadian culture is like through different programming, through different events here and also sharing what their own experience is.
Katie: Well, that's amazing. I'm struck by the fact that you in some ways have come back to the fintech space. Tell me a little bit about why it's so important to be doing that integration and retention work and what that looks like?
Tosin: It’s very important to the growth of our region and the progress of New Brunswick as a whole. What we realize is that a lot of newcomers coming into Canada want stability. So the quicker access we can help this newcomers get to, the more likely it is that they stay. We look at Welkom-U as the Amazon for newcomers, where you come to us for literally anything you need, and we go out to the right organization, the right group that can help you achieve it because we understand your side as a newcomer. And we also understand being a Canadian business. We think the work is the work we do is very important.
Katie: Yeah, it's such a great point. One thing that is on my mind a bit in this context is you're also square in the middle of this growing social enterprise movement in the region and really kind of ensuring that the socio-economic growth is just as important as the economic growth in the region. So tell me a little bit about your reflection of being a business for good.
Tosin: You know I’ve realized that I get way more satisfaction from seeing the results in terms of the social gain than the financial gain. New Brunswick is trying to get to the growth that they want to achieve and I look at this as an opportunity to give back because of the help that I got setting up my company and getting comfortable in the region. Canada has the nicest people, you know, so just being part of the growth from a social standpoint, growing communities, bringing different people together so that you learn from one another – that's what gives me so much satisfaction when I see the impact we can make.
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