Hap y Berryda y!

As I write this I’m sat at the start of a weekend of celebrations for the Raspberry Pi’s sixth birthday. This weekend Preston Raspberry Jam along with many others around the world will be celebrating the success that started back in 2012. The Raspberry Pi may be from Cambridge, but the Jam community started in England’s north west – some say Preston, some Manchester, but they both started from humble roots.

At the start there were very few Raspberry Pis and not much information was out there to help users. The Jams gave enthusiasts the time and access to the kit, enough for them to develop projects, blogs and documents that have gone on to become de facto standards.

I was present at both of the first Jams. Preston was led by Alan O’Donohoe who’s used his experience with the Raspberry Pi to help teachers understand code. Manchester was led by Ben Nuttall who’s gone on to become the Community Manager for the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Ben helped Amy Mather to learn coding and in 2013 she won Digital Girl of the Year, thanks to her tenacity and mentoring.

It’s also humbling to see the young adults that have grown up with the Raspberry Pi, taking their first steps into coding, inspiring others and developing projects that will go on to inspire and help others around the world. This is a community, not only consuming the device and accessories, but creating new and important projects. That’s what the Raspberry Pi and open source is truly about.