Winner of Workato’s The Work Revolution Challenge 2025
Introduction: Bringing Innovation to Volunteerism
When Isaac Lee, Wan Qing Yeoh, and Xin Ying Tay formed team (我)rk 爱 AI for the Workato x IMDA National Developer Challenge, they were driven by a shared commitment to social impact.
Inspired by the critical work of AWARE Singapore and the challenges charities face in onboarding volunteers quickly and effectively, the team built an intelligent, AI-assisted system to screen, match and deploy volunteers at scale.
Their winning solution beat 100 other participants’ ideas to clinch the top prize. It didn’t just improve AWARE’s operational efficiency, it also showed enormous potential to be applied across various functions and industries.
The Inspiration: A Challenge That Found Them
AWARE Singapore had approached Wan Qing with a request: To help them address the challenges in efficiently screening and matching volunteers to appropriate roles.
As Singapore’s leading gender equality advocacy group, AWARE relies heavily on volunteers to power critical services such as helplines, legal counseling, and policy research. But the deeply values-driven nature of its work meant not every volunteer was the right fit.
The team identified that the volunteer onboarding process was a significant one for AWARE, and something that could be feasibly solved with technology.
Understanding the Problem: AWARE’s Volunteer Bottleneck
The non-profit organisation had a clear problem statement for the team. They needed to reduce the administrative burden creating bottlenecks in the volunteer onboarding process, which limited the organisation’s ability to scale its services and impact.
- 4 months to train a single helpline responder
- 15+ volunteer roles with distinct skill and value requirements
- Admin-heavy vetting creates delays and drains internal resources
- In-person interviews are essential to assess values but are time-consuming
With thousands of women depending on timely support from AWARE, inefficiencies in onboarding pipelines just meant less time and resources that they were able to dedicate to actual on-ground work for their community. The team identified a real need for a scalable, tech-enabled solution.
Designing for Volunteer and Organizational Needs
The team’s lived experiences as volunteers shaped their user-first approach.
As seasoned volunteers and professionals across the tech and nonprofit sectors, the team knew what it was like to want to contribute meaningfully. However, they were sometimes unsure of whether their skillsets aligned with a charity’s needs.
“So when we went about designing the solution, we tried to make sure it was something both we and the organisation could appreciate”, said Isaac.
They focused on building an experience that:
- Allows volunteers to express skills and motivations in natural formats (speech + text)
- Uses AI to assess values alignment, a key challenge for AWARE
- Supports staff with human-in-the-loop review before final approvals
- Integrates with AWARE’s existing CRM for seamless adoption
Isaac shared: “When we talk about traditional automations for onboarding people, the unstructured bit was very challenging for them, to try and figure out ‘How do we not have to speak to every single person to understand who they are as a person?’.”
The team then worked their way backwards, ultimately recognising Gen AI’s strength in scoring unstructured data, and using that to assess and align applicants’ answers based on configured criteria set by AWARE.
This model also meant that their solution would be agile and scalable, and organisations could tweak the configured criteria and scoring based on different scenarios, or were looking for a different set of profiles and values instead.
The Solution: AI-Powered, Workato-Enabled Volunteer Screening
At the heart of the project is a semi-automated, AI-assisted volunteer onboarding system built to:
- Intelligently assess volunteer applications based on values and skills alignment
- Automatically recommend volunteers to roles where they’re most suited
- Streamline deployment via CRM integration and automated workflows
Core Components:
- Volunteer portal collects responses via speech and text
- Audio is transcribed via Google Speech-to-Text
- Gemini (Google’s AI) evaluates for alignment based on configured criteria
- Workato workflows route, score, and update submissions
- Submissions below threshold are auto-rejected or flagged for manual review
- Approved applicants are synced to AWARE’s VMS for deployment scheduling
The team also credited Workato on the safe implementation of their solution. They also used the platform to integrate their app to AI systems, which allows the changes to be made through Workato without having to touch the core systems. This will also make it easier for non-technical users to adjust.
Responsible AI: Addressing Bias and Giving Control
The team implemented an agentic AI design that is both powerful and flexible.
“Instead of complicated formulas, we used natural language scoring.”, Isaac explained. “That way, anyone can tell the AI to emphasize certain traits over others. It gives control back to the organization.”
By keeping the system transparent and easily configurable through Workato, they ensured that AWARE could iterate and fine-tune the AI to suit evolving needs and reduce bias.
The process also still involves a human-in-the-loop, accounting for any potential biases or errors by the system. Someone would still have to review the applicant before any final approval is made.
Impact: Scaling with Empathy
The solution delivers measurable and meaningful improvements:
- Faster onboarding and reduced screening workload
- Increased values-fit, leading to stronger volunteer retention
- Improved volunteer role matching, enhancing overall service delivery
“The biggest impact is freeing up time for the organization to focus on more important things—like helping women in need.” stressed Isaac.
The team believes this marks the beginning of a broader AI transformation in the social sector.
Beyond AWARE: Applications Across Sectors
While built for AWARE, the team’s solution has broader potential, both within the social sector and across other industries.
Social Sector:
- Crisis response: Deploy volunteers rapidly in emergency scenarios
- Civic engagement: Match citizens to policymaking initiatives
Commercial Use:
- Recruitment: Streamline hiring with values/skills scoring
- Mentorship platforms: Pair mentors/mentees based on compatibility
The adaptable design allows the system to be tailored to any organization needing human-aligned screening at scale.
What’s Next: From Prototype to Production
The next step is to fully integrate the solution with AWARE’s CRM and further test the deployment mechanisms.
Isaac stressed that they “want to meet the organisation where they are, fitting into tools they already know.”
The team’s ethos is clear: tech should amplify impact, not create friction.
Final Thoughts: A Win for Tech for Good
Winning The Work Revolution is more than just a milestone for (我)rk 爱 AI.
“This win proves that the challenges social organizations face resonate across industries. It inspires us to keep our journey innovating using AI and automations going.” shared Isaac. “We can see how it can help build a better society”
Their work underscores a powerful belief: AI isn’t just for tech giants—it’s for anyone working to build a better, more inclusive society.
Read about the second and third place winners of the National Developer Challenge.
