The first of 6 episodes talking to the founding sponsors of the Tech4Good South West relaunch, to explore their interest in tech for good and their hopes and ambitions for the TechforGood South West network.
This episode is in conversation with Nathan Baranowski, Managing Director of Digital Wonderlab and our first silver sponsor of Tech4Good South West.
"The opportunity for Tech4Good South West is to bring and bridge community, be that charity or actual communities together with business and enterprise to help to deliver real impact."
"The lovely thing about tech for good and particularly Tech4Good South West is it's perfectly a place to do pretty much anything, but it's only going to do those things if we come together."
Transcript
Welcome to the Tech for Good South West podcast brought to you by Annie, Alicia and Arielle. Tech for Good South West has relaunched and we are on a mission to build momentum for the Tech 4 Good movement across the South West. Our podcast focuses on conversations with charities, investors, start -ups and initiatives to share their stories, challenges and successes. Our next few episodes are focused on our founding sponsors and their hopes and ambitions for the Tech 4 Good movement.
Tech4Good South West (00:35.534)
Welcome to the Tech 4 Good Southwest podcast. I'm Arielle Tye and super excited today to be talking to one of our sponsors, Nathan Baranowski from Digital Wonderlab. If you could start by introducing yourself and telling us about your organization. Hi, I'm Nathan Baranowski. I'm from Digital Wonderlab and we are a full service agency based in Bradford and Avon. We are a quality business in full. We believe passionately that the world...
can be more equal by using digital to level the playing field. We provide everything from strategic digital thinking and UX, all the way through to developing and designing websites, apps and software. We work across the UK and with international businesses of all shapes and sizes, from startups to charities to large enterprises who are seeking to do better with digital.
So you're already mentioning there lots of things around social impact and doing better with digital. What's your interest in Tech 4 Good? Our interest in Tech 4 Good really sits in our DNA, really, probably runs through our veins, is the reality. We have always been a strong supporter of it and we see so many opportunities to advocate the use of technology to create a positive impact. I think too much of the narrative today is either that people can't do things or don't know how to or that technology is evil.
And I really think it's about creating the opportunity to create positive impact, be that in the community or for our planet, where we just think there's huge potential to bring people together to do great things. We're talking passionately about your organization and how this impact stuff runs through your DNA. Can you tell me about some of those initiatives? Yeah, we're B Corp.
And as part of that, we have chosen to socially invest in projects and we do that in three ways. So for us, we try and open source our knowledge. So how do we advocate and help others so we don't become a powerhouse of technology know -how. So how do we get that out in the world and help others? The other side of that is paying forward. So how can we use our skills and expertise? So be that time or can we put our hands in our pockets and give money in order to support projects and support them?
Tech4Good South West (02:49.806)
Most recently, that's been around delivering, often building websites. So we just finished building a website actually for Creative Back, a local social enterprise to help them to get out there. And we've done that for free as a pro bono exercise. So lots of things like that is what we do, as well as supporting small charities, particularly in helping them to understand how to use digital. So we do a lot of consultancy or CTO support in order to help them to make sense of how to use tech.
and then kind of making sure they're using the right technologies in order to help them. Wow, super important work. And moving on now to your support of the Tech 4 Good SouthWest Network. So you've come on board as a sponsor and that's really, really exciting. What are your hopes and ambitions for the Tech 4 Good SouthWest Network? What do you hope it'll be able to achieve? I think the reality is that everything is very noisy out there.
And one of the biggest challenges I think for Tech 4 Good is to help to dampen that noise and help to bring some clarity to the things that are important. I think the other side is that the Southwest particularly is a very large place and it's really a great opportunity to convene and bring the whole of the Southwest community together to break down some of those silos between what is in the North or the South or the East or the West of the region, but also
to break down some of those silos between companies. I think the opportunity to bring and bridge community, be that charity or actual communities together with business and enterprise to help to deliver some of those impacts is really, really key. I think the digital divide and the gap that we have with technology is really, really prominent in the Southwest. And I think a huge opportunity to resolve that. But doing that through great convening and getting people like us to do more.
I think is really, really important. And you mentioned convening a couple of times there, and I do know that you've been a real supporter and you've engaged in a lot of the Tech 4 Good events and charity digital initiatives here in Bristol in the Southwest, but also more widely. Why is convening people around this broad topic of Tech 4 Good so important? I think it is a broad topic, and I think one of the real challenges with that topic is making sure that people understand.
Tech4Good South West (05:11.534)
what the challenge is. I think one of the key bits when you're trying to make change is that you can create loads of agency. And people here, we must do something about that. But I'm a real firm believer that if you don't have collaboration, then you don't get the firm sustainable change that you're looking 4. And that people don't know how to do it by themselves. So either that someone saying, hey, I've got this need, if only we could solve this problem. Or someone saying, hey, I've got all these skills and I'd really love to put them to good use. Sometimes that need to convene and help people match together.
their skill sets or their understanding, whatever it is, I think we've all got something that we can bring to the table in order to support and deliver that real change. So I think helping to bring all aspects of tech 4 good, be it someone wanting to receive it, someone who can help to understand some of the challenges within the community or people who can help solve those problems are so, so important within the present and particularly in the future. Well, these are really amazing ambitions.
and let's hope that we can achieve something really cool together. Is there anything else that you want to share or say Nathan? I would just say, you know, it's so important that the question that we ask ourselves is kind of what we cannot achieve rather than what we should achieve and having some bold ambitions. The lovely thing about Tech 4 Good and particularly Tech 4 the South West is it's perfectly a place to do pretty much anything, but it's only going to do those things if we come together.
It won't happen because the people inside Tech 4 Good or Tech 4 Good Southwest do those things. It's there to help, to facilitate and enable. And I think if we put that in mind and we place ourselves forward and put ourselves forward, be that in our ask or be that in our offer, I think there's so much that we could do and we are ripe to be able to do those things right now, not waiting 4 another year or two years in order to achieve those changes that we want to see in our communities and across the Southwest.
Wow, what a positive note to end on that really by getting us together, there's just so much potential there. So thank you so much, Nathan. Thank you.