Scottish Tech Army founders get New Year Honours nod

Alistair Forbes tells CRN he has plans to broaden Scottish Tech Army not-for-profit initiative after being handed a BEM in today’s list

A former leading light of the managed services industry - Alistair Forbes - was among 1,239 Brits recognised today in a 2021 New Year Honours list that claimed to put "extraordinary public service" at its core.

Forbes was handed a British Empire Medal (BEM) for co-founding the Scottish Tech Army, which has mobilised furloughed and unemployed Scottish tech workers to support Covid response and recovery activity.

Having co-founded MSP tools vendor HoundDog Technology in 2004, Forbes left the MSP space in 2016 after LogicNow - as it had come to be known - was sold to SolarWinds.

Other tech luminaries making the grade include John Lillywhite, chair of Northern Irish Microsoft partner Kainos Software and, Covid Tech Support founder Marc Sloan and Tech London Advocates founder Russell Shaw (who was swifly congratulated by a previously honoured tech luminary, Jacqueline de Rojas CBE - below).

Published today, the 2021 list claimed to have a strong focus on showcasing the "incredible efforts" of public sector and community workers. Public sector workers alone made up 14.8 per cent of those honoured.

Since its formation at the height of the pandemic in April, the Scottish Tech Army claims to have enlisted 1,000 volunteers and worked on more than 100 projects.

Talking to CRN, Forbes - who was honoured alongside fellow Scottish Tech Army founder Peter Jaco - admitted the not-for-profit initiative had snowballed beyond his initial expectations.

"It came about as a result of a conversation in early April," he explained.

"On the one hand there were so many people and organisations on the front line of dealing with the pandemic that were really challenged by the volume of demand and the constraints under which they were having to operate. And on the other hand a large group of people in the tech industry that were furloughed or laid off, unable to do their normal jobs and stuck at home dealing with a lack of purpose and a sense of isolation. We thought that there was an opportunity to serve both groups of people by bringing them together to help each other and it took off from there."

Forbes added: "As with any new venture, you never know when you launch something new how it will be received but from the day of launch the response was immediate and overwhelming. Being awarded the BEM is very much a case of being honoured as a representative of a much larger group of people, the volunteers, who have worked together to make a real positive difference in the lives of their fellow citizens in this uniquely challenging year."

Although the Scottish Tech Army was initially set up as a rapid response initiative to deal with the pandemic, it quickly became clear that there was scope for it to play a much wider role, Forbes said.

"As a result, we are transitioning to an enduring organisation with a much broader tech for good agenda. We aim to mobilise Scotland's tech talent for good and to become the hub for tech for good activity in Scotland, working with many partners to create scalable solutions and meaningful impact for years to come," he said.