This June, Peru became the latest country to host a free IDSC Software Carpentry (SWC) Workshop, marking a milestone in data science education for the region. Behind the scenes of this historic first was an innovative collaboration that wove together multiple universities, departments, and even family ties—all sparked by a virtual internship.

The idea took root during the Spring 2025 Hemispheric Universities Consortium (HUC) virtual internship, where University of Miami data scientist Tim Norris, PhD, mentored Melanie Malca Cruzado, a student from Universidad Peruano Cayetano Heredia (UPCH). Their project involved building a special collection of geospatial data to support the establishment of a new national reserve in Peru’s protected area system, SERNANP. While immersed in the work, Melanie became intrigued by the possibility of bringing a Software Carpentry workshop to her home institution.

Motivated by her enthusiasm, Norris began connecting the dots. He reached out to Professor Pedro Romero, a certified SWC instructor in the biology department at Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM), and also enlisted the help of a physics student at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru (PUCP). Together, they envisioned a multi-institutional workshop that would span three universities and bring students from across disciplines into the same room.

Despite limited prior experience with Software Carpentry at UPCH and PUCP, the faculty at these institutions placed trust in the planning team. A date was set—June the 27th and 28th—just two weeks before final exams. PUCP, centrally located in Lima, provided two classrooms to host the sessions in person. The two-day workshop followed SWC’s standard curriculum: command-line computing with Bash, version control using Git and GitHub, and an introduction to Python for data analysis and visualization. Attendance was strong, especially among undergraduate students from the three participating universities, with a few graduate students from UNMSM’s evolutionary biology department also joining.

As is often the case with SWC workshops, the Bash and Git sessions presented new and unfamiliar territory to most students, while the Python modules benefited from prior exposure and interest. More than just an educational event, the workshop succeeded as a connector—students exchanged contacts, made cross-disciplinary connections, and helped lay the groundwork for future collaboration.

Reflecting on the experience, Norris emphasized that none of it would have been possible without the institutional support made possible through the University of Miami’s Silver Membership with the Software Carpentry Foundation. That membership, sponsored by a coalition including the Calder Medical Library, Richter Library, the Department of Computer Science, the Graduate School, the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing, and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research and Scholarship, provides the foundation for these globally impactful efforts.

As the team looks ahead, there’s hope that the Lima workshop will be just the beginning of a new tradition in Peru: empowering students across disciplines and campuses with the coding tools they need to thrive in an increasingly data-driven world.

Pictured above, second from left: Pedro Romero (the instructor), at center with beard Tim Norris, and on his right: Melanie and Joan (the two students who helped organize).