It’s been a little over seven months since I joined Raspberry Pi Foundation as chief executive. Much of that time I’ve spent with the team, trustees, partners, and the wider community, thinking about how we can best contribute to the movement of digital makers that is growing around the world. How do we articulate our mission? How can we use our expertise and resources? What do we stand for?
Hundreds of people contributed their ideas and many more provided inspiration through their actions. One of most remarkable things about Raspberry Pi is the amazing community that has grown around us and from which we take our lead.
In December the Board signed off a new strategy for the Foundation. It’s a work in progress and I like to think of it as our strategy 1.0. There’s no doubt we’ll need to adapt and evolve it as we learn more, and some big questions haven’t yet been answered. But, it feels like a significant step forward in ambition, clarity, and openness. It’s certainly exciting to be working with the team to figure out how we put it into practice.
Click to access RaspberryPiFoundationStrategy2016-18.pdf
Please take a few minutes to read through the slide deck, talk it through with some other people, and let me know what you think on the comments or by email. Thanks in advance for your contribution.
“Openess”
Do really believe that Raspberry Pi is an example of an open organisation?
(All the rest was lovely BTW – looks great – I’m personally disappointed that your aren’t trying to help Britain keep ahead in the game but that’s up to you lot)
phil : you may wish to discuss strategy with the other welshman , Tim, in London this week
On slide 10, The paragraph about Device and Platform neutral.
Is this the Foundation indicating that it plans to distance itself from the development of hardware, accept that there has been poor results in the initial aim of getting the Pi in to the classroom and provide purely educational support for the advancement of ‘getting people coding’?
If so, is this in response to the release of such boards as the MicroBit that will achieve, upon release, much greater penetration into the education system then what the Raspberry Pi has achieved?
Thanks for the comment. We already do a lot of educational work that involves platforms other than the Raspberry Pi. For example, we produce resources for Scratch and support Sonic Pi, both of which can be accessed on Mac or PCs as well as Raspberry Pis.
Code Club is now part of the Foundation and the clubs we support use whatever hardware and software works best for their kids.
We’ve never argued that the Raspberry Pi Computer is the only platform getting young people involved in computing and digital making, but we are constantly impressed by the way that educators are using it to engage a whole new generation of makers.
Personally I welcome this ‘manifesto’. I feel that much of it has been implicit for a long time, but not having it written down in words has led to the odd misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the key aims and aspirations of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Just like any educational movement, we’re never going to see ubiquity of devices or widespread adoption overnight. What really matters is that for those people who want to make a difference in their educational setting (home, classroom, local community, college, university etc), that there are comparatively less barriers now than there were 8 to 10 years ago. This has been one of the significant achievements of RPF. The other most significant the forging of a worldwide community of digital makers of all ages and backgrounds.
In the last 6 years, the iPad generation of teachers and educators has grown exponentially and the invisibility of the technology to learners and children more prevalent. Raspberry Pi offers a realistic antidote for a relatively tiny investment.
It’s critically important that while the RP community develops it’s own expertise in computing and digital making and achieves more and more wonderful things on this remarkable little computer, that we do not alienate those on the very fringes of our society. The current core of fans and experts can continue to serve their own needs very well – however, it’s vital that RPF ensures there are minimal barriers to *anyone* from the outside wanting to step in and it does not become an exclusive club where snobbery reigns. Joining up with Code Club, launching into space and Sonic Pi are amazing initiatives to help reach more diverse groups.
The iPad has been branded as a computing platform that anyone can use to consume and share – it would be fantastic for the Raspberry Pi computer to be similarly recognised as a platform for digital making for *anyone*, not just “geeks and nerds”.
I look forward to reading further blogposts.
Hi Philip – This looks great – very clear, and I think Collusion can help so it’d be great to have a chat. best, Rachel
Great to have the clarity. Does this mean that the Code Club project resources will finally be made freely available to all? I’m setting up a Raspberry Pi based code club at my boys’ primary school and I don’t have the luxury of making it free at the point of access, as neither the school nor the Parent Council have the resources to provide the necessary financial support. Having to devise my own curriculum is one overhead that I could really do without.
A Code Club should be free, so you can’t run it as a Code Club. A Code Club is only an hour a week. Can’t you donate this time plus half an hour to prepare and clean up? Because then you could join the Code Club organization. What is it that costs so much that it requires financial support? I suppose the computers, screens, keyboards, etc cost, but the kids could bring their own devices, or one could borrow from a school or library. A problem nowadays is that many schools don’t have screens since all pupils use laptops or iPads.
It’s actually more likely to be 2 hours per week plus set up and clean away as I would like to run two back to back sessions at my school to cater for more kids. Believe me when I tell you I’ve done everything I can to make it free (given that I’m basing it on the Raspberry Pi) – I’m collecting monitor, keyboard and mouse donations but we will have to buy adapters for VGA & HDMI (mostly VGA which is more expensive). School cannot offer in-building storage for ANYTHING so I’m forced to store all monitors in an out house used by the parent council – this requires an outlay for decent large storage boxes for a dozen monitors etc… we need presentation equipment (projector/screen) and council rules dictate that the school is not allowed to let us use theirs. The list goes on. Also, parent council rules preclude me from fundraising publicly for the club as it would take a potential source of income away from them. In truth, the cost per head would work out relatively small as it would be spread amongst around 20-25 pupils. However, it’s galling that I also have to source my own material for the sake of, say, £5-£10 per child per year in subs. Incidentally…in my opinion, expecting kids to come with their own laptops creates a bigger barrier to entry than asking them to bring a Pi and pay what would essentially be a nominal sub.
Oh…and I should also say that time is not the issue…that will be given free by me and a number of other parents who are willing and able to be generous with their time. It’s setup and maintenance costs. Most code clubs that I know of rely on donations to keep going (equipment needs periodic renewal). As a school based code club we also are not allowed to carry balances from one year to the next…any surplus goes back to the parent council general coffers so that makes it difficult as we would have to live hand to mouth on a year in year out basis if we based our club purely on donation largesse.
Respect, that’s why I am encouraged to build PiTalk whatever how much it will cost my company and provide it free.