Episode 1 - Checking in with Alistair Forbes and Pete Jaco

Our first episode is a chat with Scottish Tech Army founders Alistair Forbes and Pete Jaco. We talk about the meteoric rise of the STA, how it feels to be part of something that's having an immediate effect on those we're helping and touch on the plans and hopes for the future.

Transcript

Scottish Tech Army Podcast Series 1, Episode 1 (20/07/2020)

Kirsty McIntosh 0:01
Hello, and welcome to the Scottish Tech Army podcast. I'm Kirsty McIntosh. I'm an STA Volunteer
and I'm here to bring you stories and news from both within the STA community and the
organisations that we're helping. I'm very pleased to say that we've got Pete Jaco and Alistair Forbes
with us on the podcast today. It's been an amazing experience being involved in the Tech Army from
my point of view, but I would imagine for Alistair and Pete it's been quite a ride. So welcome both of
you to the STA podcast. So I was.. I don't really want to kind of go back over the history of how the
STA came about. I think most of us within the community are probably quite familiar with it now, but
it certainly seems to have been a lot more successful than I expected it to be. And I wondered how
you felt about it. Alistair, is this what you were expecting?

Alistair Forbes 0:52
I think it's probably fair to say it's what we would have dreamt of actually. I think it was very
uncertain when we got started as to what the response would be. But we've been really gratified
by the response of both the volunteer community that have signed up, and also the people who've
helped support and publicise what we're doing. We've had tremendous support from around the
Scottish business community, this quarter, third sector, Scottish Government, all of whom have been
helping to promote what we've been doing. I think that's made a massive difference in terms of the
visibility and that in turn has driven with volunteer signups and also project suggestions from the
various organisations that we're trying to reach. So where we are now I think, is is a great outcome
in terms of both the impact we can have with the organisations we're working with, and every bit as
much for the volunteers and the community we create.

Kirsty McIntosh 1:45
Yeah, it's been it's been a very exciting ride. I actually signed up on day one, and I didn't realise it
was day one, but I signed up on day one anyway. And so it's been good. Yes, I'm a first responder. So
it was quite something to see it explode. What about upu, Pete? How do you feel about it?

Pete Jaco 2:00
Yeah humbled really, I think we, you know, when Alistair and I were kicking this idea around, and we
didn't actually discuss the number of people that we expected, all we really realised was that we, we
wanted enough people with enough technical skills that we could be credible to the organisations
that we're trying to help, which is really focussed on Scotland's third sector or charity sector, and
also the government. We also realised, of course, that as keen as the the Scottish Government
digital directive, which includes the CivTech team, and it was keen to support the idea around the
Scottish Tech Army, that we also couldn't just rely on them for projects. So when Alistair is the
technical brains behind the army, he built the website, he built the back end capture mechanism and
also you know, it very importantly, not just having a channel for volunteers to register, but for
people to register projects, and we've seen nearly 200 projects submitted through that channel,
now, in addition to the projects that we've, we've had submitted directly from, from the Scottish
Government.

Kirsty McIntosh 3:04
I mean, I think it's, you've made it so easy actually both to register as a volunteer, but also to submit
projects because I submitted a project on the day I registered as a volunteer as well. And that and
that's still an active project today, which is, which has been wonderful for me. But you made it very
easy for me to do that. It could have been quite, it could have quite easily made that very kind of
complicated issue about trying to justify your, your credentials for getting involved. And you didn't
and I think that's, that's been one of the sort of great things and I'm sure that's one of the reasons
why it's actually been so easy to sort of draw in, you know, a big, big pool of volunteers. And so has
it sent you down a road that you weren't expecting then? I mean, it's, it's really fantastic to hear, you
know, talk of collaborating with tech and things but did you did you expect it to push you down the
road that you're travelling to down now?

Pete Jaco 3:53
What we're seeing is that the Scottish tech system is getting it's getting more and more joined up.
And as is this whole need to really join up everyone that's going to be supporting the younger and
less experienced technologists through the biggest recession that we can see in our lifetimes. So
we're actively talking to ScotlandIS, Scotland's largest trade association with nearly 1000 companies.
We're also in discussions with the management at Codeclan. Indeed, we've gotten probably nearly
100 Clan graduates from different programmes in the Scottish Tech Army now. So we're trying to
make it easier for people to join the army and actually do meaningful work during this downturn. So
this this is really the next phase of the Scottish Tech Army, which we're calling STA2 is building a core
team. It's also finding meaningful projects where people can get some real work experience during
what is going to be a deep downtrend. So they're really ready to help Scotland's economy recover in
the next 12 to 18 months as we come out of the recession.

Kirsty McIntosh 4:59
What about you, Alistair?

Alistair Forbes 5:00
Yeah, I think picking up on a couple of things that you just mentioned there, when we set it up, it
was very much an immediate response type of effort. And there wasn't necessarily an expectation
that there would be a longer term role for the Scottish Tech Army. And what we've seen in the, in
the short time, still only two months that we've been going is that there is definitely a role for the
Scottish Tech Army in the medium to longer term. And we're just refining what that's going to look
like. And you just touched on the skills agenda. That's a really important part of it for people in the
tech industry itself, and very much for the third sector in Scotland. And we've seen that the demand
is huge. A as a sector, I think people in the sector themselves would say that they haven't necessarily
been at the front of the queue where it's been in relation to looking at implementing technology and
digital solutions. But I think that they're having their eyes opened both because they they have a
need to do that because of the situation that really has been in over the last three months or so. But
also they're Starting to get an idea of what the art of the possible is. And I think, you know, to your
point Kirsty about trying to make it as easy as possible for people to sign up. The intention was really
to get people just to tell us what their problems were, and for us to be the people who translate that
into what a solution might look like. So that's been really great. I think another thing which we
certainly weren't thinking about at the outset was that we're now very much focusing on how can
we make these solutions as scalable as possible. And the idea now is very much as we go into a
project, to think about it in this in the context of who else might be able to use a solution like this.
And mentioned in the weekly update last week that we now have the team that did the work with
Voluntary Services Aberdeen to put in place the solution to manage their PPE inventory. They are
now looking, they're not looking at they're actively working on creating a scalable solution that we
can now offer out to many organisations around Scotland to give them access to the same sort of
capabilities in a really easy way. So basically, it's like signing up for any other web service, you know,
you go on to a signup page, you create your account, you enter your data, and you're up and
running. And that's definitely not something that we can visit at the outset. But it really is going to
make a big impact, I think by focusing on that scalability.

Kirsty McIntosh 7:22
Yeah, I think, I'm a trustee of a charity as well. And I think that it's, it's going to be really fantastic to
watch the third sector realise that this is a resource that's available to them, and as you say, to sort
of show them the art of the possible and really sort of try and get the message across to them that
digitization helps them help more people more quickly, more effectively. And it's not something to
be afraid of, and, and now, because of the Tech Army, the finance side of it potentially is not the
barrier to not even being willing to think about some of these things because the assumption has
always been that they can't afford to do it. So I think that's I think that's been one of the really great
sort of positive messages that the Tech Army can take out into into the third sector is that there is
this resource that's never been available to them before. And please use it. I think that's absolutely
fantastic.

Alistair Forbes 8:16
Yeah, really resonates with the agenda the Scottish Government has as well because they are very
keen to support digitisation of the third sector. Scottish Government obviously funds a lot of third
sector organisations, either directly or indirectly. So from their perspective, the more effective that
money can be put to work, the more value they're going to get for the investment they're making in
the sector. So it very much resonates with them as well.

Kirsty McIntosh 8:37
Indeed, so we really are, we really are making a difference. And that's, that's so exciting to be a part
of something like that.

Pete Jaco 8:42
We really are and we're starting to work with organisations that can help to spread the word and in
terms of our capability in this whole art of the possible throughout the charitable sector. I've been
doing a number of external speeches, innovation, and events. Hosted by recruitment firms and other
firms just to really, which we've been kindly offered to profile the Scottish Tech Army to different
organisations, both throughout industry to talk about corporate social responsibility, but also in the
charitable sector, where we can talk about some of the projects that we've been doing and Start to
engage and, and Kirsty, you've been very kind to sort of pick up a lead interaction where you're
helping onboard and sort of 'jungle guide' some of these charities through the application process
into the Scottish Tech Army. And other people are obviously keen to help in that process as well. But
you know, we we're now at the point where we've really come from nothing over the last sort of
two and a half months or so. And so there's a credibility issue with a lot of longstanding existing kind
of service personnel. And, and so we're Starting to earn the respect to people and people getting to
know the capability - indeed, getting to know team members that have worked on individual
projects for the Scottish Government, we're getting a lot of very positive feedback from those
interactions and, and so hence more credibility and more projects to come. We're now we've now
been asked by SVCO to actually promote the Scottish Tech Army on one of their blogs. We're also
been talking to the largest charitable trade association in Scotland. And they've they've got a
membership of over 500 charity CEOs that are part of their trade association. And they've asked us
to provide some promotional material as well. So the word really is getting out there. And and would
with our two month anniversary or birthday, I guess, is a birthday. We got a lot of press through Hot
Tin Roof who'd been a pro bono supporter to the Scottish Tech Army since the Start. So that's again
helping to raise our profile and attract more projects.

Kirsty McIntosh 10:53
So I've never I've never worked for a start up in my, my working life. But is this is this what working
in a Start up is actually really like that you kind of I think, especially always used to use Alistair was
you're kind of building, building the aircraft as it's already 40,000 feet in the air. I mean, is this is
this.. Are we all experiencing a Start up?

Alistair Forbes 11:16
It's a really interesting question because Peter and I, as you know, both come from the world of early
Stage companies, Startups scale up companies. And so we've operated in high growth environments
for quite a long time. But we have on a number of occasions both said, we've actually never
experienced something that has grown at this rate, it is unique in our experience, which is
phenomenal. And it's, it's really energising to see the level of commitment that so many volunteers
have put into this. And we set it up initially with the backdrop of the furlough scheme, and therefore
thinking people who were on furlough and potentially people whose roles have been made
redundant or might be made redundant, and we've had lots of people who are in those kind of
situations. But as Peter mentioned, we've had tremendous response from early Stage tech
professionals who are just at the Start of their careers, and looking for roles. So giving them the
opportunity to get some experience that will help them on that journey. And also, really a surprising
number of people who are in full time employment, but just want to contribute, they really want to
make a difference. And so they're really going above and beyond in terms of their you committing
their own personal time over and above a full time job. And you know, there are quite a number of
people who are in that situation as well. So that level of commitment, that level of engagement has
been extraordinary. And even more so when you think that, you know, we've got nigh on a 1000
people now who have signed up as volunteers. None of them knew each other, never met each
other. And yet the there's just this tremendous swell of energy that's come out of this group of
people. And numerous times people have said that the mere fact of participating in this has been an
experience that is really making a difference for them. And the willingness of people to engage with
other people to identify a need to step forward to jump in, and to work together has been really
inspiring. And it's fantastic to see.

Pete Jaco 13:16
Yeah, I just, I just add to that, like, I remember early on we, you know, when we, when we kind of lit
the torch paper that launched this called Tech Army, we didn't really know what to expect, and and,
you know, suddenly, literally hundreds of people were signing up, it was almost certainly every...
there'd be a hundred, then two then 500. And we really, we were really, as I mentioned before,
humbled by this, but also, you know, we're trying to, in the nicest possible way, set some
parameters. But you know, the only thing that that we really did was sort of agree sort of what sort
of tech platform people had their favourite you know, tech platform they wanted to bring to the
army in which there's been a little bit of marshalling around that and some polling done but you
know, pretty soon it settled into a semblance of order that we see today. And, in fact, the great work
being done in terms of the back end with a book knowledge and other project management skills
and, and in the teaming. And now, you know that that's been even further refined, with the launch
this week and Alistair you'll give more detail about, and it's really my view to make it much easier for
people to find projects, engaged with projects, because, you know, when you land in the army, it can
be, as people say a bit of a confusing place. So all of this kind of intelligence and community spirit
behind it, Maria and, and so many people have done such a great job, you know, helping to build
and orchestrate this and make people feel welcome. And somebody very early on was asking
questions like 'what if there's a dispute?', you know, how do we handle that? And Alistair and I were,
you know, we were both in the mindset, well, why would there be one, and in fact, I personally
haven't seen any disputes in the army. I think the only time we've had any problems in the army is
over enthusiastic and too many people wanting to do similar things and occasionally bumping into
each other. So you know that it but it's been this this whole network thing and that that, for us is a
big legacy piece. And you know, we'd like to think that once you join the army, you never actually
leave. And we celebrate when people went back to work. You know, we've we've had, you know,
Kirsty Irvine, who is leaving, our Marcomms, is returning, I think first day back today, you've already
was helping out with some impact analysis and Johnny, as well have recently left to return to work.
So we're delighted by that. But it also, of course, gives more opportunity for for new people to get
involved in some of these projects as well.

Kirsty McIntosh 15:36
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, my own experience of the of the this actually the sheer size of the
community, the ability, the fact that you can actually reach out and ask for, you know, a connection
or some assistance for something has really been fantastic. And the community building that's been
going on has been good, you know, we're sort of trying to build, you know, clear pathways for
people if they're trying to get a mentor or if they're trying to get some experience in a particular
thing.I think with the Code clanners in particular, you know that the opportunity to actually use
those new skills that they've just come out from Codeclan with is, is a fantastic opportunity for them.
And I think I do kind of jokingly say this, but I think I might be slightly more serious. But it's amazing
what happens when money and politics aren't involved. People just kind of get stuck right in about it
and get things done. And in a way, it's a bit like, it's a bit like Starting a cafe, you know, with a with a
piece table that your mum had in her garage and a couple of plastic chairs. And that's how we sort of
Started off and now we're beginning to kind of refine things as we sort of get on and it's really nice
to kind of be involved in all of those iterations of the Tech Army sort of every single day, something
new kind of comes along, and it's, it can be a bit of a kind of a minefield a little bit, you know, for
new arrivals at the moment, but we're trying to do a lot about that to make sure that those
pathways are much, much clearer. We've got community hosts now that are now welcoming new
members and then sort of giving them a bit of a tour of the jungle and showing them and showing
them where to go and what to do so hopefully, as well that will help people sort Engage quickly right
from the very, very beginning because they'll get so much from it. I do say that whatever you put in,
you get out tenfold. So is there anything in particular that has happened over the last few weeks
that particularly sort of surprised or delighted you? Suppose I'm thinking possibly about the white
stripe donuts just to lob that in there. But I wondered if there was there was anything else that had
happened within the community that had that had been completely left field for you?

Alistair Forbes 17:26
I guess there's lots that's delighted us I think, and we Peter alluded to some of the stuff that's just
happened literally this week. So, you know, we've had feedback about how do I get an overview of
all the things that are going on all the projects that are being resourced and all that sort of thing, so a
team of people's worked on that, and, and we now have a place that we can do that. So that's great,
you know, people heard the feedback, decided they wanted to solve the problem, and you know,
within a pretty short space of time, they put something together that makes a significant
improvement for people so that's fantastic. White Striped Donuts was completely left field.
Absolutely. And, and we're still waiting. They're still working on that difficult second album I think.
And, and we're looking forward to seeing what that's going to be in there. People have been on a
video call with Peter will see that he has some musical instruments on the wall behind him and he
has promised to, to dust them off and to put his headband on and do whatever needs to be done to
to contribute to that. So that's great. And I think in terms of other things that have delighted us, I
would certainly point to this first project that were turning into a product. The team that did the
original project work has shown tremendous enthusiasm for taking that forwards. And so we're
expecting within a really short space of time to have something that we can scale out to lots of
organisations. And so that's that's a tremendous initiative. I think the other highlight of last week
was the Presentation to Scottish Government of the work that the homebrew teams had done - a
really phenomenal piece of work. And, you know, two weeks from the challenge being laid down, we
had three teams that presented some really great work. And within another 10 days, they come
together to form the super team. And we're ready to present something that really impressed the
people from Scottish Government. We have a team of half a dozen people from Scottish
Government up to and including director level at Scottish Government, you know Director of Digital,
Chief data officer, Chief design officer, those kind of people, all of them were so complimentary
about the work they've been done, really highlighting the fact that it's kind of like you were saying,
Kirsty, it was very much a grind up initiative. So we literally all we did was said to the teams, there's
the datafeed go knock yourselves out, and they really did. And, you know, there's nothing that I
think we've seen that you know, that level of achievement in such a short space of time, and taking
what has been, data has been available, but really not very accessible and turning into something
that is a really useful tool. And that's, that's tremendous. So there's some from me. Yeah.

Pete Jaco 20:13
Just like to back that up. And I've heard nothing but compliments about the way that our DataSTAr
project was, was built, designed, presented. It adds a huge amount of value. It doesn't exist
anywhere, you know, that data covered? It's very sad data. Of course, every data point is a tragedy,
a death through COVID-19, so, or an infection, and it's, you know, that's got legs, and the Scottish
Government is actually looking at how that can be used or, again, additional data coming through
now. The other highlight I'd like to point out is the response to the launch of the CivTech 5.0 ten
challenges. There's been another channel set up in Slack for people that haven't seen that yet. The
responses are due in a couple of weeks. So there's 20 plus people, STA members in that channel
already who are actually looking at how they can form for challenges and just to give you a quick
overview on that programme, I'd encourage people to look at the website, obviously, for the details
of the challenges, but this is actually a paid engagement model. So CivTech will pay £5K to an
individual or groups that get down selected into preparing some pilot Stage work for the challenge,
but they're actually accepted into the challenge, they then have to form a limited company, but then
they will get paid 20,000 pounds to help them do that and and support some living costs. Then
they're into about a 12 week accelerator with the demo day, that's scheduled now for January. And
if they get into that process, they're actually working to sell their technology or their service into the
Scottish Government that is sponsored that challenge. And the outcome of that could be a first
contract for new company with a value of up to 200,000 pounds from that government agency. So
I've been a big supporter of that programme, I'm on their advisory board for the last three years. I'm
a big believer in actually helping SMEs sell to government. That's probably one of most complex
things and SME can do so the CivTech 5.0 programme, I'd certainly suggest that STA Slackers check it
out.

Kirsty McIntosh 22:15
Absolutely. And I think I think actually, the homebrew challenge shows what the STA can do in terms
of showing Scottish Government the art of possible as well so I think CivTech 5.0 is an absolutely
excellent route for STA-ers to, to really get kind of stuck in about them, those challenges are
fascinating this round out as well. There's some there's some really meaty problems they're looking
for looking for solutions. So be really interesting to see how we how we get on with that. So what's
next what can we, er, how long do we have to wait before we find out what STA2 looks like?

Alistair Forbes 22:48
at all now, and it is something that obviously has been a lot of thought going into we've had a lot of
input from a lot of people across the Tech Army which helps with that thinking process and So we're,
we're firming up on exactly what that looks like. And we have a board call at midday, a regular Friday
with a call, including Sandy Finlayson, who's the other director who's helped with the setup and
promotion of the Tech Army. And so I think we're now at a Stage where we're, we're getting ready
to present to the group as a whole. And I would envisage that we'll set up a zoom session for you
know, as many people as would like to join that we can share that vision of where it's going to go get
some more feedback from people and and Start really on what the next phase of the journey looks
like.

Kirsty McIntosh 23:37
That's fantastic. Well, hopefully you'll come back and talk to us on the podcast. At the future, we'd
like to come back and check in with the pair of you on a fairly regular basis, hopefully. So thank you
both very much for your time today.

 
Pete Jaco 23:49
Well, thank you, Kirsty and delighted to speak to everyone, yeah.

Alistair Forbes 23:52
Another great initiative from the STA. Thank you Kirsty.

Kirsty McIntosh 23:55
Thank you. Okay.

So there you have it, the future of the STA is bright by the sound of things. I hope you've enjoyed
this. If you've got some stories that you'd like us to be talking about, please do get in touch. You can
either direct message me on Slack or drop your ideas into the STA podcast channel. Next week we'll
be talking to a couple of our volunteers who'll be telling us about their experiences over the last few
weeks. My thanks to John Pooley for his help in bringing this podcast together today. Bye for now.