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SmartSTEMs named Digital Tech (For Good) Champion at 2021 Digital Technology Awards

  • PwC, Scottish Tech Army and Stephen Wilson of Edinburgh-based Netli also recognised at tech industry awards.

A Glasgow charity has been named Digital Tech (For Good) Champion at this year’s Digital Technology Awards.

SmartSTEMs helps young people explore and practice STEM subjects, and the charity was recognised for pivoting their delivery model to provide children with digital learning sessions. This enabled the charity to extend its reach from an initial target of 2,500 pupils to over 20,000, reaching more children than ever with STEM training.

Run annually by ScotlandIS, the awards reflect the strength of the Scottish tech sector to celebrate the wealth of innovation and talent Scotland has to offer at organisations both small and large.

After an incredibly challenging year, the 2021 Awards sought to recognise the companies and individuals doing good in the Scottish tech industry, whether through contributing to the community, creating technology that helps serve society, or involvement in skilling others in technology.

In addition to SmartSTEMs, Scottish Tech Army, PwC and Stephen Wilson of Netli were named winners for Tech for Good, Social Impact and Unsung Hero categories respectively.

Karen Meechan, Interim CEO at ScotlandIS, said: “The Scottish tech sector rose to challenges posed last year in incredible ways, truly banding together to support Scottish businesses and people through the pandemic. This made it particularly challenging for our judges to choose winners for each of our categories.”

Scottish Tech Army won the Tech for Good award, for harnessing volunteers to use standard tech tools and marketing to make a difference.

PwC earned the Social Impact Award for running mentorship schemes, workshops to help young women realise their ambitions in tech, volunteering to support food banks and refugees during the pandemic and much more.

In addition to its overall win as Digital Tech (For Good) Champion, SmartSTEMs was awarded for Skills Contribution, through its work to improve the skills landscape in the last year.

And last but not least, Stephen Wilson, CEO of Edinburgh-based healthcare software platform Netli, has been awarded Unsung Hero after giving up his salary and pension during the pandemic to continue to support the care industry, while he continued to advocate for the sector, create jobs and raise awareness of its issues on a national scale.

Karen Meechan added: “We wish many congratulations to the winners! At ScotlandIS, we take great pride in recognising contributions within our sector. It has truly gone above and beyond to help make a difference.”

The winners were named yesterday afternoon at a virtual awards event, sponsored by the Scottish Government Digital, Connecting Scotland, Sopra Steria, Morgan Stanley, Iomart, RandD Tax and The Data Lab.

For more information on the awards, or to watch the virtual event, click here.

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