"Computational skills are in high demand among scientists and trainees in the life sciences, and we're thrilled to support and scale The Carpentries' efforts to teach in-demand programming and data science skills to researchers," said Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Science Program Officer, Dario Taraborelli. "We believe these trainings will enable more researchers to become part of a growing community advancing open, reproducible research globally."

Specifically, they are providing $1 million to assist The Carpentries to create new data science resources, broaden access to and engagement with The Carpentries' unique offerings, and strengthen the communities of data science instructors and the trainers who teach them. Funds will also support The Carpentries to develop new biological sciences resources in collaboration with the EukRef and UniEuk communities.

Much of scientists' training in computational skills is acquired through informal education, and many instructors who teach courses have not received training in effective teaching strategies. Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's support will expand The Carpentries' instructor training program, which has trained over 2,300 instructors and has over 400 people on the current waitlist.

Funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will also support CarpentriesLabs -- a centralized, open repository of vetted, high-quality lessons that will be submitted and maintained by the scientific community. The platform aims to help instructors find high-quality teaching materials and provide curriculum developers with community support for maintenance.