(What) A Day in the Life of the Tech for Good Alliance

There’s a scene in the first of the latest incarnation of Star Trek movies where Scotty congratulates himself on beaming 3 people from 2 locations onto 1 transporter pad and on a not-so-sunny day on 19th May, we had something of a similar sense of satisfaction when we worked with PwC to support them once again on their fantastic One Firm One Day initiative. It is a national day in which the company encourages its people to volunteer in a wide assortment of ways all across the UK. Keeping this UK-wide initiative in mind, we set them three challenges, for three charities to be worked on by three teams in three locations, Edinburgh, Manchester and London.

We are often asked what can you really achieve in one day? ... well, we know from experience that, if you prepare well and organise yourself effectively, the answer is “a great deal” ...

Last year, PwC’s cloud and data engineering team in Edinburgh pulled out all the stops to help make our Soundscape project a possibility. It’s an iOS app used by visually impaired people around the world and it helps them with spatial audio navigation. Threatened with a switch-off, we asked PwC to investigate whether we could reproduce the app before the original service was withdrawn. Their work on that single day translated into a go-live app 4 months later that more than 10,000 users around the world are using every day.

Building on the enthusiasm and impact of that single team’s efforts last year, we approached PwC with three asks instead of just one. Drake Music, a charity that uses technology to make music making available to disabled musicians had a problem with some existing software, in Manchester, Citizens Advice SORT (Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale and Trafford) wanted some AI expertise to help with case notes collection and in London, Slade Gardens Adventure Playground needed a prototype for a new registration and check in system.

It’s safe to say that PwC’s volunteers didn’t disappoint.

It’s no small thing to get things ready for days like these to genuinely have impact. We had to get the charities and the projects fully prepared, really understanding what the outcomes needed to be on the day. For its part, PwC had to promote the volunteering opportunities internally and then co-ordinate teams with the required skillsets, and project leaders for the day had to plan ahead to ensure maximum effectiveness. Meeting space had to be found, permissions given, technical environments set up and introductions made.

For our part, we split our own team across all three sites – Edinburgh, Manchester and London so we could be with a team on the day and we brought the charities into the rooms too, both to see the work being done and also to help answer questions and course correct as the day went on.

Linked by video conference, the day began with a welcome and scene set by PwC’s Rob McCargow, their Technology Impact Leader and Ben Lingwood (Lead Partner for Cloud and Data Engineering) along with our own Alistair Forbes. Rotating through all three sites, each introduced themselves and the charity leads shared the challenge they were looking to tackle on the day.

With agreements to check in at lunchtime and present outcomes by 3.30 pm, each of the teams got to work.

In Edinburgh, the same cloud engineering team that spectacularly delivered 2023’s OFOD project, Soundscape, grappled all day with a really knotty problem, eventually unravelling it much to Drake Music’s relief. The problem is now resolved.

In Manchester, a team of over twenty split into three groups, each charged with developing elements of a tool that would transform case note information captured in audio and free text form into sensible case notes, based on templates provided by the team at CASORT. The tool is being implemented and will complement another AI tool called CADDY which has been developed between Citizens Advice and the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence within the Cabinet Office of UK Government.

In London, the team got to grips with developing a registration and check-in tool that would be easy to access, cheap to run and usable by anyone from a small child to a grown adult. In addition to the tech-skilled volunteers, PwC auditors contributed by evaluating the cost implications of some of the proposed solutions. With the prototype now developed, an independent volunteer who’s been involved with the charity for some time is working on the designs before handing them over to another Tech for Good Alliance member team to build the front end.

Each of the teams really pulled out all the stops, preparing for the day, working collaboratively on the day and providing seamless handovers with clear documentation. The solutions created by the teams for Citizens Advice and Slade Gardens will be reusable and we are looking forward to sharing more information about how we will take them to other organisations, further amplifying the impact the volunteers have had.

It was just one day, but what a day, what a difference. Beat that, Scotty!

Written by: Kirsty McIntosh