News
Happy campers: GBIF renews partnership with DataCamp Donates to foster digital upskilling across the network
Published 2/17/2025
Applications are open for GBIF users to participate in the next round of the online learning partnership to develop data literacy skills
Galaxy frog (Melanobatrachus indicus) 2020 danielraju via iNaturalist Research grade Observations licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
2025 marks the fourth year of continuous partnership between GBIF and DataCamp Donates which has supported more than 250 participants through the GBIF community to freely access online digital learning. The partnership builds on the values of the Data Use Club to empower biodiversity professionals to increase data literacy capacity across the GBIF network. Courses available through the DataCamp online platform cover topics such as data analyses, programming, artificial intelligence, machine learning, software development, coding and more.
“We are thrilled to continue our partnership with GBIF for another year, reinforcing our shared commitment to empowering researchers, scientists, and analysts with the data skills they need to drive meaningful biodiversity research," said Mafer Bencomo, social impact associate at DataCamp. "At DataCamp, we believe that democratizing data education is key to tackling global challenges, and it’s inspiring to see the impact this initiative has had within the GBIF community.”
In 2024, 216 GBIF community members completed the programme which represents 102 per cent increase in participation compared to the previous year. The most completed courses were in R, SQL and Python, with the cohort completing 454 courses equating to 2,969 hours of learning through the DataCamp training platform.
Jean Cossi Ganglo, node manager of Benin utilized skills acquired through the program in 2024 to publish his manuscript on Digital Accessible Knowledge as part of a post doctorate program.
“Delivering the manuscript was a great achievement for me. The knowledge obtained through the completed DataCamp Donates programme, particularly in R and the Tidyverse courses greatly helped me throughout this process.”
Skills gained from participating in the programme have also been applied to support national species assessments as demonstrated by Dario Escobar former head of delegation and node manager at SiB Colombia and Head of Biodiversity Data Mobilization at ANDI who recently completed the programme.
“Through the DataCamp platform I had the opportunity to develop skills in Python for the management and visualization of biodiversity data. I was able to apply these skills to carry out a national diagnosis in Colombia on invasive alien species as an input to update the National Invasive Species Strategy and Action Plan. With this knowledge, I was able to download millions of records from GBIF and process them to identify the status and trends of invasive species. The research conducted will allow the Ministry of Environment to design a new national plan in accordance with the new global goals and national needs.”
Applications open for 2025
Applications for 2025 DataCamp licences are open to GBIF users. We particularly welcome applications from individuals from countries where the GDP per capita is less than $13,500 USD. We will put licence awardees in contact with either a GBIF Participant node or a regional support team to follow users training progress.
DataCamp course content is currently available in English and Spanish, however the content accessible through the DataCamp portal are also available in Portuguese, German and French languages.