We are proud to announce that Wowment has now recorded more than 11,500 conversations between users, many of whom are young people and their volunteer mentors. This growth has happened in just 8 months since we launched the patent-pending technology in January 2025.

Every single one of these conversations represents a moment of encouragement, guidance, and connection. Together, they tell the story of how technology can enable safe, human relationships at scale.

Why This Matters

When Wowment was first created, many said it would be impossible to allow volunteers and young people to communicate safely without sharing personal contact details. Yet, that is exactly what we have achieved.

Wowment works seamlessly through WhatsApp, where young people already spend their time, but it adds a powerful safeguarding layer:

• No need to share phone numbers – volunteers and young people can connect without exchanging personal details.

• AI safeguarding built in – conversations are monitor

  ...

For years, mentoring was often imagined as an hour-long, face-to-face chat over coffee. But working closely with hundreds of young people — particularly those in care or navigating big life transitions — we’ve seen something shift.

Today, many young people build trust not through set-piece meetings, but through what we call micro-connections.

Short messages.
Quick check-ins.
A simple “How did the interview go?” or “Thinking of you today.”

Moments of encouragement that create consistency and safety.
And that’s where the magic really happens.

Through our work at Goal 17 Ltd — and the data-driven insights from our safeguarding platform, Wowment.ai — we’ve learned that mentoring relationships rarely begin at the first meeting. Instead, they often start weeks or even months earlier through safe, consistent, low-pressure interactions.

In fact, it can take three to four months for a young person to truly start trusting a mentor — especially if they’ve had difficult experiences with adult...

In children’s services, digital innovation is everywhere. New platforms, portals, and apps are released with the promise of transforming communication, safeguarding, and engagement.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: most of them don’t work.

Young people don’t want to download another app just to speak to someone they barely know. Volunteers don’t want the friction of learning yet another platform when all they want is a natural conversation. And safeguarding teams are drowning in disconnected systems that fail to provide a clear picture.

We know this because we tried it ourselves.

A few years ago, we built an app to make mentoring safer. But instead of creating connections, it created barriers. Young people didn’t engage. Volunteers lost interest. The very thing we were trying to strengthen — trust — became diluted.

Then someone said something that has shaped our journey ever since:
“You don’t need another app. You need trust.”

That changed everything.

We started asking new qu...

Innovate UK have released a film about Wowment and our journey to creating one of the most exciting safeguarding technologies on the market. We were proud then, and we remain proud now, to have been chosen as part of their Inclusive Innovation Award programme — an initiative that champions ideas with the power to make society fairer, safer, and more connected.

The film captures the story of how our founders' work at Goal 17 Ltd led us to develop Wowment: a patent-pending technology that allows people to connect safely through WhatsApp without exchanging personal contact details.

This breakthrough is game-changing for safeguarding. For years, the biggest barrier to one-to-one mentoring and volunteering programmes has been safe communication. By removing the need to share phone numbers, Wowment opens the door for thousands more people to build supportive relationships.

But we didn’t stop there. AI-powered features now monitor risks, protect confidentiality, and surface valuable insigh...

Today saw the announcement of Innovate UK’s prestigious new Inclusive Innovation Award. One of the acclaimed recipients is former construction worker and founder of Wowment, Fran Boorman, who will receive a £50,000 grant from the UK Government’s innovation agency to develop game-changing Inclusive AI technology.

Despite showing huge potential for a career in the construction industry and being selected for two prestigious graduate schemes, Fran left her first 3 jobs in the first 3 years of her career. She recalls being filled with self-doubt and isolated in male-dominated workplaces.

That all changed with her 4^th company where she was inducted into a mentoring programme. She went on to be recognised as the highest performer in that organisation and helped hundreds more women navigate the same career path.

A decade on and Fran is turning her experience of job failures into a mission to make sure others don’t get left behind. She has developed a multi-award-winning company, Goal 17 Lt...

UK Sport has today launched a new International Leadership Mentoring Programme, bringing together ten experienced international sports leaders with ten future leaders who will receive mentoring support as part of the programme over the next nine months.

The International Leadership Mentoring Programme is initially being delivered as a pilot programme by Goal 17 Ltd, an award-winning company that specialises in mentor training and programme design for equality and diversity.

Each of the mentors will work with their mentee to help them define and pursue their own leadership ambitions and build a strong professional network with other leaders at international sports federations. A specialist mentoring app, Wowment, will be used to pair each programme participant with a mentee who can best support her with the specific challenges she is facing on her leadership pathway.

The programme has been launched as part of UK Sport’s commitment to growing a thriving and more diverse sporting system ...

An award-winning mentoring programme is being launched in Cambridgeshire to help support young people who are leaving the care system. It is set to make waves and break down barriers by training local people to make am impact in their communities.

Cambridgeshire County Council is partnering with social impact specialists, Goal 17 Ltd to launch a mentoring programme aimed at supporting young care leavers.

The programme will recruit and train mentors from across the county to provide guidance, advice, and support to young care leavers as they navigate the challenges of adulthood. The goal is to help these young people build self-esteem, develop new skills, and achieve their full potential.

Local people are being invited to volunteer as mentors in this forward-thinking programme. To become a mentor, individuals will undergo a training program provided by Goal 17 Ltd that will see them learn valuable skills and receive a University Certificate in recognition of their progress.

Mentors ...

Wowment has become a verified social enterprise supplier on the Supply Change platform. Supply Change connects organisations looking for goods and services with pre-vetted social suppliers, helping them to make a positive impact with their everyday business spend.

Our mentoring platform is already used by many organisations wanting to create tangible social value through meaningful mentoring partnerships. We help establish and manage:

1. INTERNAL mentoring programmes to improve diversity and inclusion for our clients, measuring the impact to evidence the progress each individual is making.
2. EXTERNAL mentoring programmes where we pair our clients with the beneficiaries of local charities in order to create community cohesion and measurable social value.

Our mentoring is delivered in partnership with our sister training company Goal 17 

We’re looking forward to working with Supply Change’s buying partners, helping them create and evidence social value by supporting our work to close...

Wowment is providing the technology behind an exciting new mentoring programme that aims to provide support for disadvantaged young people in Bristol.

Launched at the start of March 2023, the programme will see 12 staff from construction company Brandon Hire Station sponsoring a 3-month employability programme, delivered by the Bristol Bears Community Foundation. Alongside this, the Brandon staff will offer their time to mentor and support the young beneficiaries.

 Brandon Hire Station is a Tool and Equipment Hire Specialist and part of Vp Plc. They wanted to create meaningful social value within their community and saw this partnership with the Bristol Bears Community Foundation and mentor training company Goal 17 as an ideal opportunity to do so.

The aim of the programme is to provide young people with the skills, knowledge, and confidence to enter the world of work, and the mentors from Brandon will play a crucial role in supporting this.

The mentors will support the mentees ...

Social Value UK is delighted to announce that Fran Boorman, Wowment's Founder, has recently joined our Board of Directors. The fresh perspective and experience Fran will bring to the board is something we look forward to!

Ahead of joining the board, we had time to catch up with her and learn a little more…

My background is in developing successful high-growth businesses as both an executive and non-executive board member.

I am the founder of Wowment Ltd and Goal 17 Ltd, a multi-award-winning mentor training company and technology platform that has been featured in Forbes, the BBC News and many national newspapers for our social impact work. We are best known for our programmes that pair corporate mentors with charity beneficiaries to help break down the barriers in society.

It is through Goal 17 that I started my connection with SVUK and a fascination with measuring, understanding and improving impact.

Goal 17 has evolved and is now building a technology mentoring pl...