Access to the digital world can be life changing. It can teach us new skills, make our bills cheaper, help us keep in touch with friends and family or apply for jobs online. But without basic digital skills, your online potential cannot be reached.
In 2011 We Are What We Do took home the Innovation Award for their product Internet Buttons, a free digital inclusion tool that allows users to organise and share websites with people they know, helping make the Internet more accessible and rewarding.
What’s changed since then? More than just the Award name. Now called the BT Ingenious Award, We Are What We Do are known as Shift, and their innovative product is known simply as Buttons.
Following their win they received valuable feedback from users and supporters:
“Winning allowed us to increase visibility and the number of people using the tool, and we secured funding from eON which allowed us to redesign the tool and test with The Tinder Foundation and UK Online Centres.”
They’ve since completed an upgrade, offer translated versions in Polish and Dutch, and have an adapted version of the site for the market in Ireland. Continual feedback and user testing means that Buttons continues to grow, and is now used by a variety of organisations that want to focus a class by grouping all of their resources in one place – like The Depression Alliance, who use it to signpost their service users to useful resources.
“Winning a Tech4Good Award is valuable at any stage of a project to raise awareness, increase users and to get useful feedback. We would highly recommend individuals and organisations to enter – there’s nothing to lose!”
To find out more about Buttons visit the Shift website. If you’re not sure whether to enter yourself, the organisation that you work for, a nationwide campaign or local community project, read our Tech4Good Impact series and find out the incredible difference winning has made to these charities and organisations.
Visit our Enter Now page and tell us who should win this year – entry closes 8th May.
