Celebrating 25 Years of The Carpentries

On 24 July 1998, the first Software Carpentry workshop, led by Greg Wilson and Brent Gorda, came to a close. The workshop aimed to teach researchers skills to work more effectively with their data.


Image by Greg Wilson of attendees at the first Software Carpentry workshop in 1998.


Timeline signifying milestones in the history of The Carpentries.

This year, 25 years later, on that same day, we will launch a series of events to celebrate this milestone. This launch event will include a conversation with founders and past and present Directors reflecting on the beginnings and evolution of the organisation. After the launch event, from August to December 2023, we plan to spotlight a region of the world each month to demonstrate the contributions and impact of our global community. We will be featuring the regions in the following order:

• Australia and New Zealand during August
• Africa during September
• Latin America during October
• Europe and North America during November, concluding with
• Asia during December.

Each month’s regional focus will include a virtual event with community members from each region sharing their stories on the contributions and impact The Carpentries has made in their region. We will also be posting blogs and infographics on our social media accounts to highlight the activities of each region and sharing short videos and written testimonials featuring our community members around the world.

How to be Involved

• Register for our launch event on 24 July, 19:00 UTC (find your time; add to calendar) and receive notifications of upcoming events as part of this series throughout the remainder of the year.


• Follow and contribute to the celebration on Mastodon, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter using the hashtag #Carpentries25.

• Share your testimonial as a short video or a written contribution. We are looking for reflections on the impact The Carpentries has had on your professional development, career, coding skills, teaching, or anything else. We welcome testimonials in any language.

  • We are looking for short videos of 120 seconds or less, which you create using your phone or laptop camera, and email to community@carpentries.org.
  • Alternatively, you can submit a written testimonial in the form of a blog post of 800 words or less or a short testimonial of 200 words or less, accompanied by your photo, to the same email address.
  • Short video and written testimonials in languages other than English are strongly encouraged, and we request that an English transcript or translation accompany such submissions. Please record the transcript with the video so we can upload the transcript file to YouTube. If you need assistance with how to do this, please reach out to the Community Development Team.
  • Testimonials are welcome starting immediately, and we will schedule to share them on our social media platforms over the coming six months. Testimonials from each region will be shared during the month in which that region is the spotlight of the celebrations.

• Member organisations in the different regions can also connect with us, reflecting on the impact The Carpentries has had on their institutions. We are open to receiving suggestions for the different formats that these contributions can take.

Lastly, if you or your subcommunity have any ideas you wish to share with us on how to highlight your region or celebrate this anniversary, please feel free to reach out to the Community Development Team. We would love to connect with you as we mark this significant milestone for The Carpentries community.