GBIF has renewed its successful partnership with DataCamp Donates for a third year, enabling data users from across much of its network to access valuable training and improve their data skills.
"Biodiversity is such an important environmental issue, and GBIF do fantastic work in this area", said Richie Cotton, Data Science Evangelist with DataCamp. "It's been a pleasure to be able to help GBIF improve their data skills and further contribute to their mission to provide free and open access to biodiversity data."
This partnership compliments the GBIF Data Use Club by allowing data users free access to self-directed online training through the DataCamp platform. Representatives of GBIF Participants in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Northern Eurasia and the the Pacific are eligible to apply for team licenses. Individuals from the same regions are welcome to apply for single-user licences, with local GBIF node staff or a regional support team member helping to guide their progress.
Expanding the global accessibility of the platform, DataCamp has recently upgraded their most popular courses to offer content in Spanish. New and existing Spanish-speaking learners on the platform will now be able to improve their data science skills in their native language.
"We are very pleased to be able continue this partnership with DataCamp Donates," said Laura Anne Russell, Training Officer for Community and Capacity at the GBIF Secretariat. "The programme has and continues to help building skills and capacity while also strengthening the GBIF community of practice."
In the past year, 70 GBIF community members took advantage of this opportunity, clocking in more than 740 hours and completing 115 courses through the learning platform, covering topics including programming, data manipulation, probability and statistics, data visualization and machine learning.
"Thanks to the support of DataCamp Donates, I gained access to top-quality educational resources and hands-on learning experiences, enabling me to tackle real-world data challenges with confidence and expertise," said Admore Mureva from Bindura University in Zimbabwe.
Mureva completed courses in R and Python, aiding his study and publication leveraging GBIF-mediated data to model the distribution of mopane (Colophospermum mopane) in Southern Africa under changing climates.
Asiimwe Daudi, a software developer from Kampala, Uganda, also brushed up his Python skills to help build LabXpertDS, a web-based disease surveillance dashboard aimed at users from the Ugandan Ministry of Health. By automating data capture and visualization from laboratory testing equipment, the system offers a solution for both patients and clinicians in monitoring infections such as tuberculosis, HIV and SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 pandemic.
"We're excited to continue our fruitful partnership with GBIF for another year as they help us achieve DataCamp's mission of democratizing data and AI education," added Nathaniel Taylor-Leach, Social Impact Manager at DataCamp. "We are proud to contribute to the upskilling and output of hundreds of talented researchers, analysts, and scientists."