28th of April 2022 …

The Scottish Tech Army’s second Tech for Good Summit - our flagship event of the year … and Michael von Euw, Charlotte Canham, and Joe Cross were the team that was going to deliver it …

The second Tech for Good Summit organised by the Scottish Tech Army took place on the 28th April 2022, the second anniversary of the launch of the Scottish Tech Army itself.

This year’s Summit again gave us an opportunity to explore several areas of the developing tech for good ecosystem and provided the platform for the launch of the Tech for Good Alliance.

Collaboration and the development and promotion of the tech for good ecosystem are key themes for us in the Scottish Tech Army. We believe that, while there are many great programmes and projects being carried out under the banner of tech for good, the landscape remains fragmented and that as a result, the impact is less than it could be.

In the face of the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Ukraine, local communities continue to mobilise to great effect. Despite the daily horror stories, there are many examples of personal efforts to help support the war efforts, groups of friends driving across Europe to deliver much needed goods and food, van owners relocating from Edinburgh to Poland to feed the queues of refugees at the Polish borders and countless other inspiring stories of people rallying to support the people of Ukraine.

We announced recently that the Scottish Tech Army is part of a consortium that will be developing a digital skills for life and work programme for care-experienced young people, supported by to funding from The Life Changes Trust Legacy Fund. Having disbursed all its funds, the Trust itself has now wound up and we tuned in to some emotional webinars reviewing the impact of the Trust over the last seven years. It’s clear that it is held in very high regard by those organisations that have worked with and benefitted from the Trust and its funds, and that the team there, led by Carole Patrick, will be sorely missed.

The invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February has sent shock waves around the world and as the effects have become apparent, we have seen a huge willingness and determination on the part of many people and organisations to do something to help in some way, especially in supporting the Ukrainians in the conflict zones and those that have left the country and are now refugees in neighbouring countries. In many ways, the reaction has been similar to what was seen in the early days of the COVID pandemic – massive impacts on large numbers of people and a similar desire to find a way to help.

Preparations are well underway to begin the next phase of our SOLE project (Supporting Our Local Economy) by engaging directly with communities across East Lothian. At the end of 2021 we secured UK Community Renewal Funding and since then we’ve been working quietly in the background getting ready with new branding, a full marketing plan and an active recruitment campaign to help build out the project team we need to make this project happen.

The day before International Women’s Day this month I the Scottish Tech Army at a lunch at the House of Lords, courtesy of OpenUK, (the organisation that promotes UK leadership and global collaboration in open technology). I was there to hear Baroness Helena Kennedy of the Shaws QC talk about her social justice work and specifically about how she brought female Afghan judges out of the country as the Taliban moved back in.

We’re delighted that we are finally able to share some good news we’ve been sitting on for a while. The Scottish Tech Army will be joining a consortium of partners led by YMCA Scotland and including Barnardo’s Scotland, YouthLink Scotland, Renfrewshire Council and Mhor Collective to deliver a Digital Skills programme for care experienced young people.

There are so many different ways the tech for good ecosystem works. This month we’ve some good news to share with you on the work we’re doing with one of our partners, Microsoft.

Scottish Tech Army Co-Founder and CEO Alistair Forbes and Head of Partnerships Kirsty McIntosh were delighted to be confirmed recently as Ambassadors to the Digital Poverty Alliance, a UK wide initiative that, like the Scottish Tech Army, started during the pandemic. Its mission is clear and ambitious - to end digital poverty by 2030.

2021 was a transformational year for the Scottish Tech Army, one in which we completed the transition from our roots as a COVID response initiative to an organisation focussed for the long term on an expanded tech for good mission. Our core objective now is to mobilise Scotland’s tech talent for good, bringing to bear the talents, enthusiasm and commitment of those in the tech and tech-related sectors on the biggest challenges facing us as a nation.

The DigiInventors Challenge is an annual competition, organised by the Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre, for teams of school-age students to develop ideas to encourage young people to keep active, staying healthy and happy now and in the future. 2021 saw the fifth competition run, with significantly expanded scope, taking in teams from the United Arab Emirates as well as teams from Scotland, supported by Heriot-Watt University through its Dubai campus.

Scottish Tech Army management team members Joanna Allen and Kirsty McIntosh attended OpenUK’s fascinating Sustainability Day at the Federated Hermes COP26 fringe venue last month. Co-sponsored by ever-collaborative Red Hat, it was a terrific way to get back into networking mode again.

Microsoft has partnered with Nationwide during Black History Month to deliver a free online finance and digital skills event for BAME students. The event will take place on Wednesday, October 20, and young people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds will hear from business leaders about a variety of ways to achieve and maintain financial freedom.

JPMorgan Chase, which has a significant technology presence here in Scotland, recently shared a fascinating report on its global Tech for Social Good programme, which is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. Some of the figures quoted are extraordinarily impressive – more than 400,000 hours of volunteer hours from their employees over the last ten years delivering more than 1,300 projects and the result is that more than one million lives are impacted annually by the work the programme does. This is an amazing achievement over a sustained period and a cause for both congratulation and celebration.