Automation has been hailed as a game changer for productivity with the power to streamline and turbo charge repetitive tasks especially in administration. However, one small charity found itself in a nightmare scenario when its automated procedures started to break down and their whole system needed to migrate to a new platform.

In November 2023, we had the pleasure of supporting the annual ACOSVO conference for charity leaders which was held in Edinburgh. ACOSVO is the membership organisation that supports Scottish charity CEOs, senior management and Chairs. The focus this year on data, digital and AI was responding to the membership’s need for more information and an opportunity for open discussion.

The Digital Skills Gap is a major challenge in the UK, both in terms of individual skills for life and in terms of skills to be effective and productive in a work setting. We attended two events in November that highlighted initiatives designed to help address these challenges.

Estonia, like its two Baltic counterparts Latvia and Lithuania was under Soviet Occupation briefly in 1940-41 and then for 47 years between 1944-1991. It was feared that the Post-Soviet slump would continue to impact on the Estonian economy and way of life. However, as a society Estonians have made transformative changes since the early 2000s. So much so that Estonia is now a world leader in the IT and Technology industry and has become one of the most digitalised nations on the planet.

Being Santa involves some big, logistical challenges. This is why GSOC teamed up with the Scottish Tech Army (STA) to improve their online capabilities. Via The Tech For Good Alliance the Scottish Tech Army called on a team of specialists from AND Digital to improve GSOC's website and database functionality.

Over the last year a team of volunteers at the Scottish Tech Army (STA) has delivered a searchable, web-based application, which allows computer science teachers to access and present free lesson starter exercises in their classes. The idea originated from Toni Scullion, founder of dressCode and a computer science teacher herself, to improve access to engaging teaching materials for computer science.

The Tech for Good Alliance, the UK-wide skilled tech volunteering framework programme created by the Scottish Tech Army, has announced a strategic partnership with GoCodeGreen, the UK’s leading carbon diagnosis and decisioning platform for software and related technology,

The Scottish Tech Army has today announced the launch of its Soundscape service, providing a ground-breaking audio experience built on extensive development carried out by Microsoft Research and released under an open-source licence. The service will provide a replacement for the current service, which will not be available beyond the end of August 2023.

Guest blog from Toni Scullion, a Computing Science teacher and founder of nonprofit charity dressCode.

This year’s Tech for Good Summit was good for many reasons, most of which you might expect, perhaps. Great networking opportunities, fascinating discussions and expert contributions from across the tech and third sectors. An unexpected outcome was an opportunity to partner with PwC on its One Firm One Day volunteering initiative, using their skills to conduct a feasibility assessment on using code released by Microsoft to create an enduring service to support the visually-impaired community.

The Scottish Tech Army has been awarded funding support of up to £350,000 over a two-year period by The National Lottery Community Fund., made possible by National Lottery players. The award provides for match funding of subscriptions from companies that sign up as participating members of the Tech for Good Alliance.

Baby steps 20+, a Falkirk-based charity, was established in 2020 to provide a recycling and upcycling service for baby goods, offering paid employment to local people with special needs. It enlisted the help of the Scottish Tech Army in order to help promote the social enterprise by developing an online community shop selling pre-loved baby and toddler items.

At our third Tech for Good Summit on 20th April we were delighted to welcome Philanthropy expert, Rhodri Davies to deliver our morning keynote presentation. In a wide-ranging talk, Rhodri set the context of the many challenges facing the charity sector post pandemic. In many ways the sector is facing a perfect storm of reduced financial reserves, shrinking income, higher wage bills and energy costs, all happening at the same time as a big increase in demand for the services and help it provides.

ISEE’s Journey to Establishing a Digital Presence with the Scottish Tech Army’s Expertise. As a new charitable organisation, ISEE is dedicated to achieving its mission of raising awareness of Irlen Syndrome. Irlen syndrome is a difficulty with visual perceptual processing and is not an 'eye' problem. A key part of the charity’s strategy is establishing a digital presence to help raise awareness.

Sally Coulthard, former Army Officer and founder of the Defence Gardens Scheme, shares her experience working with the Scottish Tech Army (STA) to establish their website and meet legal requirements. Volunteers Lauren Kennedy and Jason Wan provided invaluable support with website structuring, search engine optimisation, privacy notices, GDPR compliance, newsletter setup, and social media channels. The assistance received from the volunteers made a significant difference in setting up a professional showcase for the Defence Garden Scheme and proved to be an excellent communication vehicle.

Changes is a community health project in East Lothian, which works to help people in the county achieve and maintain positive mental health and wellbeing. In this video, CEO Caitlin Rodgers talks about the contributions of Scottish Tech Army volunteers across a range of activities, which resulted in more financial support from local businesses, more requests for support from younger people and greater confidence internally around cyber security.

This week I thought that I would offer my insight into some of the work being carried out behind the scenes here at the Scottish Tech Army and highlight the contribution our community of volunteers continues to make.

So who am I? Well I’m Joe, a Geography graduate who has found himself working with the STA for almost a year now (wow does the time not fly?).

Last week I joined an online session hosted by Social Enterprise Scotland discussing the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on volunteering. Attendees were a mix of SES members and organisations like the Scottish Tech Army which work to support social enterprises.

The context for the event was a report from Volunteer Scotland issued in September looking ahead to the impact of this crisis on both third sector organisations and volunteers.

AND Digital and the Scottish Tech Army are delighted to report on the successful completion of the first project to be delivered within the framework of the Tech for Good Alliance. This new initiative was launched by the Scottish Tech Army to drive the development of the Tech for Good ecosystem in the UK by building a bridge to connect the resources of leading companies in the tech sector with the digital needs of organisations in the third sector.

In September the Scottish Tech Army (STA) team was invited to our first in-person event at Codeclan - ‘The Road To Sustainable Software Engineering'. The event was held at CodeClan’s Edinburgh base at the foot of the castle rock. As always, we were warmly welcomed by the CodeClan team.

Eric Zie is theFounder and CEO of GoCodeGreen, an independent climate tech company that is dedicated to measuring the carbon efficiency of software products