Capgemini’s junior talent collaborate with The Prince’s Trust to launch new Future Steps App

Our partnership and the work we do

Capgemini has a longstanding relationship with The Prince’s Trust dating back over twenty years. The work undertaken together has enabled us to support thousands of young people through a variety of different programmes and projects through mentoring, virtual collaboration and the energy of our people

The partnership has also seen us work closely to help the charity to build vital digital capabilities, leveraging our expertise in transformation.

As part of our ongoing partnership, we are always looking for opportunities where we can really help make a material difference to the charity organisation through work that we can do in the technology space and deliver as Capgemini.

The Future Steps App

Future Steps is a 10,000-steps-a-day challenge run by The Prince’s Trust in February annually. Those taking part track their daily steps for the month and fundraise through a dedicated App.

Ahead of the 2022 Future Steps challenge, the team at The Prince’s Trust recognised the App needed improvement as the user experience was problematic and the Trust wanted to add new, more inclusive functionality for wheelchair users. The charity reached out to us for support due to our expertise in mobile technology and historic support for the challenge. As a result, we embarked on a four-month project working closely with the Trust to develop a new App.

A key learning opportunity for Capgemini’s junior talent

At Capgemini, we have in the region of over 300 new graduates and apprentices join in a typical year, and we are always looking for opportunities to upskill and expose them to exciting new projects – and what is more exciting than a project that really makes a difference?

With the focus of The Prince’s Trust being young people, the charity was very supportive of Capgemini’s junior and emerging talent spearheading the project with the right support mechanisms in place. A project that could really help to accelerate their learning.

Apprentices and graduates from across the business were onboarded onto the Future Steps project. These included recent graduates from Capgemini’s programme in partnership with Code Your Future, the not for profit organisation that trains socially excluded people as software developers. Senior support was also put in place including a senior engineer, senior designer and a developer to coach and mentor the team.

Capgemini’s junior talent were empowered to get on and drive the project forwards. They were given day-to-day responsibility and accountability for the project and the flat hierarchy allowed direct exposure to The Prince’s Trust team in an open and collaborative, yet safe environment – not something that is always possible at a junior level.

Developing the App

The Prince’s Trust and Capgemini team were required to complete the project within four months to ensure that the App was live ahead of the 2022 challenge. A huge amount of work was undertaken during this period to stabilise and futureproof the App, improve the design and user experience, fix bugs and also improve the JustGiving integration.

A key focus for The Prince’s Trust was inclusiveness and as a result, wheelchair users were added to the new App allowing them to take part for the first time. All language used was thoroughly reviewed to ensure inclusivity.

The Future Steps App for the 2022 is now live and offers a slicker and more inclusive experience than ever before. It can be downloaded from both the Apple and Android App stores. We are excited for those taking part in the challenge to try it and welcome any feedback.

Our team will continue to work with The Prince’s Trust throughout 2022 to ensure we are continually improving the user experience, onboarding more junior members of our team where possible.

Overall, the project has been a huge success and the new App has already helped deliver an improved uptake in downloads from last year. The Capgemini team involved benefitted hugely from the project and were able to learn a wide range of skills, from App development and design through to project ownership working in close collaboration with The Prince’s Trust. Due to the nature of the multi-disciplinary project and team makeup, they were also able to gain an insight into different areas of our business and build their network within Capgemini. The team can now take this experience and skills learned and apply it to future client work.

“Taking part in the Future Steps App project allowed me to take a step up to the role of lead developer. This was a real stretch learning opportunity for me and gave me vital leadership experience”.

– Chris Walker, Lead Developer

This project truly represents digital inclusivity at its best. Not only did it use technology to help maximise opportunity for the Trust to support young people at a time when it is most needed, solve social problems, it also provided the opportunity for our junior talent to learn important digital skills they will be able take forward in their roles. These kinds of projects are extremely important but are reliant upon top level support to make it happen – to empower, trust and allocate resource.

Projects like these are something all companies should be thinking about…. Imagine the difference we could make and the change it could affect if all businesses used upcoming talent to solve social problems in this way.

Sally Caughey

UK Head of Digital Inclusion

Throughout her career with Capgemini, Sally has worked in various roles on client transformation programmes. She’s a passionate advocate of the positive difference technology and digital solutions can bring to every organisation and individual, and in 2015 she was part of the team that set up the Careers and Enterprise Company, dedicated to preparing and inspiring young people for the changing world of work. Leading Capgemini’s digital inclusion programme in the UK since 2018, she’s focused on how business can help to make sure that everyone can benefit from the digital revolution.

Steven Webb

Expert in Digital Transformation

Steven is an experienced Leader, IT strategist, enterprise and solution architect, with extensive global and offshore experience. I have worked in a variety of roles specialising in helping CXOs and large organisations transform their enterprises and customer experience to increase business performance through intelligent use of digit