One of the first priorities for an employer is making sure its workplace is accessible for all and completely inclusive. The Workplace Inclusion award celebrates technology pioneers that are creating programmes, training, educating and more, for a more inclusive workplace. As the Tech4Good awards open for nominations, we wanted to highlight some past winners of the award.  

A previous winner is WhiteHat, which is a platform that is transforming apprenticeships by developing high quality education and training that supports the needs of both employers and young people, both on and offline. WhiteHat plays a vital role in solving the UK’s skills gap, addressing inequalities in pay and opportunity, and challenging wider societal perceptions surrounding apprenticeships and how you access the best careers.

WhiteHat focuses on three core areas:

  1. Measuring potential beyond academics & work experience through their platform. Candidates create an online profile, including personality and video profiles, that identifies hidden talent and evidences skills that CVs fail to show. Candidates are then intelligently matched with opportunities to which they would be best suited. Better matches mean more apprentices completing apprenticeships, and more employers returning to recruit apprentices.
  2. Delivering world-class content via applied learning programmes. WhiteHat partners with some of the world’s best content providers to ensure they deliver a world class learning experience. WhiteHat’s online platform houses exemplar courses and facilitates peer mentoring, empowering apprentices to talk, rate, and explore learning.
  3. Helping a diverse group of young people build social capital & strong networks. They’re powering a social experience for apprentices to rival the relationships students build at university. Bringing apprentices together through events and matching them with mentors helps them develop a fantastic network

Research has found that building a diverse workforce has a positive impact both culturally and economically, but industries such as tech, finance, media, and law, individuals from BAME and FSM backgrounds are massively underrepresented. Companies are aware that this needs to change, but most remain unsure of how to access talent from these groups. WhiteHat encourages employers in these sectors to take on apprentices by offering an easy to use platform which will ultimately start to remedy the problem. It is focused on developing future leaders; a generation of people taught via applied learning, with an emphasis on building skills alongside knowledge.

Another previous winner is Global AutoCorrect by Lexable which is the brainchild of graduate Neil Cottrell, who is severely dyslexic and originally developed the software as a solution to overcome his own difficulties. Global AutoCorrect  is a discreet and intuitive software tool which allows the user to focus on the content of their work by automatically correcting their spelling as they type in any program.

The software makes use of an extensive database and intelligent algorithms, providing millions of accurate corrections as soon as it is installed. By reducing the distractions caused by red underlines, this leads to better concentration and less stress. Thousands of people with dyslexia around the world are benefiting from Neil’s innovation, as they are regaining confidence in their writing.

It has been recorded that by using Global Autocorrect increases a word per minute score by 3.6%. Since winning the award in 2012, LexAble has grown to a team of eight, and were proud to announce the release of Global AutoCorrect for Mac in February 2014.

To enter the award, please visit here. This Award is open to any individual, business, charity, social enterprise or other public body with a presence in the UK. It may refer to the work you do as a whole or one specific workplace inclusion project, you can nominate your own organisation or a project you admire.