Case Study - Young Enterprise Scotland

Young Enterprise Scotland (YES) is a Glasgow-based charity that works across Scotland with pupils in primary, secondary and tertiary education to inspire and equip them with entrepreneurial skills. Chief executive, Geoff Leask, always had a long-term strategy to move towards a more blended model of delivering services, but with COVID-19 he says he’s been able to accelerate his plans with help from the Scottish Tech Army.

"Although blended learning is very much in tune with where we’re going, our unique selling point will still be the 600 volunteer advisors and mentors we have across Scotland, who help us to deliver our services. Young people more than ever are going to need to develop their resilience, communication, creativity and collaboration skills whether they set up a business or work in the private or third sector. By using Microsoft Teams, we’re putting the appropriate safeguarding in place so that we’re in a position to deliver our courses online to young people when the schools and colleges go back in mid-August."

Scottish Tech Amy volunteer Cameron Butchart, an IT Project Manager at Edinburgh Airport, currently on furlough,, is a member of the team working with YES to come up with a solution to enable the charity to work online. ‘When we went underneath the covers we discovered that while YES is very good at what it does face-to-face,, it needed help with its digital strategy. We identified some key points to give YES some food for thought and developed a road map so they can adapt to new ways of working. We’re also running a number of workshops to help them through this transformation process. They’re a fantastic team to work with as they understand the need for change.’

Butchart points out that many charities don’t have the luxury of tapping into the IT skills that are available in the private sector. ‘Many of them think IT solutions will cost a lot, but that’s not always the case. It’s rewarding to help out an organisation in the third sector and the project also keeps my mind active. I’m not someone that likes to sit around doing nothing so when I saw the Scottish Tech Army call for volunteers on LinkedIn, I signed up.’

Leask also heard about the Scottish Tech Army online and says ‘it was like manna from heaven’ to find there was a group of people coming together to help charities and other organisations. ‘The project has been a very positive experience for us. As an organisation we’’e very entrepreneurial and like to do things quickly so it’s been refreshing to work with Scottish Tech Army volunteers who have the same mentality. There’s a lot of noise and clutter online at the moment so for the Scottish Tech Army to raise themselves above that and get such traction in the business community is a significant achievement.’

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