Every so often the Scottish Tech Army gets asked to realise a project that has a wow factor. As soon as you start talking about it to people you can see the lights go on. Even better when such a project connects with a basic need we all have: using a toilet.

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.

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.

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.

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?).

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

Last week the Scottish Tech Army was given the opportunity to be part of Data Summit 2022, the flagship event of Data Fest, organised by The Data Lab. All the members of the management team have been part of big industry events over the years, but this was the first time that we had been at one as the Scottish Tech Army.

It’s Trustees Week so I thought I tell you about my own experience as a Trustee over the last three years.

I have been a trustee for Seescape, a Fife-based charity that supports people with visual impairment, for nearly 3 years. It provides a range of services from that include home assessments, sight support services, equipment support and provision and befriending.

With significant experience of the stress faced by nurses during the COVID crisis it is great to see supportive tools and techniques emerging. Dr Kath MacDonald and Dr Caroline Dickson from Queen Margaret University (QMU) working with groups of community nurses have developed an interactive toolkit called CAKE, which makes use of creative storytelling to promote self-care and team wellbeing.

As the criticality of the coronavirus pandemic has receded, we took the decision recently to retire the COVID dashboard that was created early in the pandemic by a very committed group of volunteers in the Scottish Tech Army. The project that created the dashboard was interesting for a number of reasons and we wanted to reflect on the project, what it delivered and what we learned from it.

Over the last 18 months, one of the major projects that the Scottish Tech Army has been working on is SOLE Scotland, the online community platform designed to support the wide range of civic, business, and organisational activities in Scotland’s towns and cities. Having run a pilot in Dunbar in 2021, funding was secured from the UK Community Renewal Fund, alongside continued support from East Lothian Council, to roll the platform out across the whole of East Lothian.

The COVID pandemic forced a wholesale shift in how community level services are delivered. We saw a fundamental shift in how community level engagement could be delivered and the need for new ways of working accelerated. One example of this is the development of an easily-adopted and scalable platform to allow Community Councils to communicate with and consult the people living in their areas.

Working in collaboration, the Scottish Tech Army (STA), NatWest and GoCodeGreen have built a low carbon impact charity donation platform in support of the humanitarian crisis created by the war in Ukraine. Together we are showing how a common purpose, doing good and having sustainability at the heart of delivery is possible.