VW Bridge: A Platform that connects employees and transforms innovation at VWDS
In an increasingly complex corporate world, one of the biggest challenges for companies is identifying and accessing internal knowledge: who knows what within the organization? At VWDS, we turned this challenge into an opportunity for genuine innovation created by employees for employees.
VW Bridge is the brainchild of the Road Explorers innovation program, and the winning idea of the year 2023. In just three months of focused development in 2024, we created a platform that connects more than 45% of our employees and growing. Adoption was immediate and impressive—on the first day after launch, 100 employees registered, showing strong initial interest.
Behind this groundbreaking achievement stands a talented and dedicated team that worked determined to transform the concept into reality. VW Bridge was developed by five visionary employees representing all VWDS Tech Units: Carla Marreiros (Software Developer @ SDC), Rodrigo Caetani (Software Developer @ CODE), Miguel Gadelha (Software Developer @ MDH), Gabriel Aragão (Software Developer @ CODE), and Patrícia Souza (Product Designer @ CODE). Together, we not only built a robust platform, but also laid the foundations for a new culture of collaboration at VWDS.
How VW Bridge Connects People and Knowledge
The platform works through two complementary tools that reinvent the way we collaborate:
One of VW Bridge’s unique features is its comprehensive map of all employees’ skills, knowledge, and expertise in specific Volkswagen systems. This mapping reveals the incredible diversity of talent within our company: more than 380 different skills are being used among over 360 users, and more than 35 professionals have made themselves available as mentors. This mapping allows any employee to quickly identify colleagues with specific expertise, whether from their own team or completely different areas of the Volkswagen Digital Solutions.
The second pillar of the platform is a tool that allows employees to request help and offer support to colleagues. This feature simplifies the search for assistance, whether to solve technical challenges or day-to-day challenges, creating a culture of mutual support and knowledge sharing.
Overcoming Challenges with Internal Innovation
The VW Bridge leadership team: Albertina Soares (Engineering Manager), Patrícia Souza (Product Designer), and Gabriel Aragão (Software Developer).
Developing VW Bridge was not a simple task. As VWDS’s first fully internal project, we pioneered new processes, from obtaining infrastructure resources to working with the Legal and Compliance teams.
The learning curve was steep for all of us in the company. The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) deadline was just three months. Still, we worked beyond that because we truly believed in the project’s potential. As a Product Designer at VWDS and the Product Lead of the VW Bridge, I found myself doing things completely outside my daily job description, from presentations to the board of directors to tracking budget expenses. It was like running a startup within VWDS.
And the most revealing part was seeing how VWDS works behind the scenes. Doing pitches and presentations to the Directors completely changed my approach to product development. Because of this experience, I even started taking business and management courses, something I never would have considered years ago.
“VW Bridge represents not just a technological solution but a shift in how we see the value of internal knowledge. Our experience showed that the greatest innovation often lies in connecting the dots that already exist within the company,” explains Gabriel Aragão, Software Developer and Tech Lead for the project. ” Becoming data-driven was a turning point in our approach to product development. It’s not enough to build a technically excellent platform; you have to understand how it impacts people’s daily lives and make decisions based on that information.”
The team’s approach to product development reflected our commitment to innovation. We selected technologies we were already experienced with (Kotlin, Spring, React, and AWS) to focus on solving the actual challenges. This pragmatic decision enabled faster development without sacrificing quality.
The development process blended technical excellence with deep user understanding. Developers collaborated directly with the Product Design taking part in to the user interviews to understand the real needs and pain points of the employees. Through Lean and Agile methodologies, the team delivered the Minimum Viable Product in just six sprints, while establishing a data-driven approach to continue improving the platform based on actual usage metrics.
The First Internal Project to Become a Product
In 2025, after evaluating the platform’s impact, the VWDS board decided to turn VW Bridge into the first internal project with 100% dedicated professionals. This milestone demonstrates the company’s commitment to nurturing innovation that emerges from within.
“VW Bridge is a strategic piece in VWDS’s digital transformation puzzle. Its greatest strength lies in enabling connections between colleagues, whether in different teams, Tech Units, or even companies—that’s the real value we deliver,” says Albertina Soares, Engineering Manager for VW Bridge. “Our investment in VW Bridge reflects a clear vision: there are significant opportunities to create value and impact both inside and outside Digital Solutions.”
The future vision is to elevate VW Bridge to a central role in the company’s digital transformation, establishing it as a benchmark for group companies seeking innovative, collaborative solutions and inspiring a new era of digital innovation and collaboration within the Volkswagen Group.
VW Bridge started as a bold bet: Could five employees with a good idea create something truly valuable? The answer is yes.
What began as a passion project is now an official VWDS product. No external consultants, just employees solving their challenges. It’s the ultimate proof that the best solutions often already exist within the company itself.
The VW Bridge journey demonstrates a simple truth: sometimes, the answer isn’t to buy another off-the-shelf solution but to create space for good internal ideas to flourish. And when that happens, everyone wins.