But that was only the beginning! After the first two successful Software Carpentry workshops and the very first Data Carpentry course taught at the VU by instructors from various countries, it was finally time to get the Carpentries fully on campus. Step one to accomplish this, was to train our own Carpentry instructors. We are incredibly lucky to have so many colleagues who are not only extremely skilled and experienced in coding, automated workflows, and version control, but also friendly and willing to share their knowledge with others. All they needed was an opportunity to bring their abilities to action.

The first six Carpentry instructors from all across the VU were trained at the eScience Center on the 21st and 22nd of June. Congratulations to Sophie Arnoult, Koen Leuveld, Tijmen Münker, Max Paulus, Elisa Rodenburg, and Peter Stol. We are so happy to work with you on the mission to teach the next generation of researchers essential software skills, needed to make science easier and more accessible to others! Teaching Carpentry courses does not only mean to teach peers and students how to build and share better software. The Carpentries also help to include people from a broader range of backgrounds into the pipeline of Open Science skills, and thus simply make the world a tiny bit better.

Having our first Carpentry instructors at the VU is an exciting step as it will allow us to organise on campus and online Carpentry workshops that are optimized to the needs of the VU, and to continue teaching digital skills needed for research nowadays.

If you want to become a Carpentry instructor as well, or if you want to become part of the Carpentry community, please do not hesitate to contact Meron Vermaas: m.vermaas@vu.nl or Stephanie van de Sandt: s.van.de.sandt@vu.nl.