The voluntary sector’s poor understanding of the potential technology could have is one of the barriers to scaling new tools, the co-founder of a charity that champions technology for good said yesterday.  

Annika Small (pictured), co-founder of the Centre for the Acceleration of Social Technology (CAST), was speaking at an event organised by the charity, Accelerating the use of technology to drive social change, where she said that the key challenge now was helping technology start-ups to achieve scale. 

She told the audience that: “There are some compelling examples of how tech is being used to tackle social care, welfare, climate change and a raft of other social problems but we currently have very few examples of approaches that have truly scaled.”

Small identified a number of barriers that prevent projects from growing. These included: “access to tech talent”, “access to the right capital at the right time in a venture’s development”, “access to markets when commissioners and purchasers are prone to be risk averse”, “conflicting and unhelpful legal and regulatory structures” and “a limited understanding among the third sector of how to use tech to transform services”.

She said that CAST was formed last year to support the “merging the fast-paced development approach of lean start-ups with the reach, networks and reputation of established social organisations”. 

But said: “We need to do more if we are to make a difference at scale.”

She added that the millennial generation, who are less motivated by profit, combined with a growing technology for good and social investment community means that “there is the motivation; the spirit and energy; the skills and the resources: it is up to us to take advantage of this opportunity.

"It is up to us to join forces across tech, social, business and government and find ways to make a difference at scale; to ensure that the UK leads the world in bringing a social purpose to the digital revolution”.