I founded datocracy because I kept seeing the same thing happen everywhere I worked. In governments across Africa, in NGOs, in MSMEs, people were trying to keep up with a world changing faster than anyone had prepared them for. The technology was moving. The capacity wasn’t.
Most partnership announcements in this space are not worth your time. Logo swaps, press releases, vague commitments to “working together.” I understand the cynicism. I’ve felt it myself.
This one is different. And I want to tell you why it matters to me personally.
datocracy has just announced a strategic partnership with The Carpentries. Before I say what we’re going to build together, I need to say something about who they are. Earlier this year, The Carpentries turned down $1.5 million in federal funding rather than abandon their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Fifteen million dollars. Gone, on principle. You can read about it here. When I read that, I felt genuine pride. That kind of integrity is rare. It’s the kind of organisation I want datocracy to be.
The Carpentries have spent decades doing something deceptively hard: making data and computational skills genuinely accessible, community-driven, and evidence-based. They don’t just teach people. They build instructors who go on to teach communities, creating lasting capability that doesn’t disappear when the programme ends.
That’s the same philosophy datocracy was built on.
Together, we’re going to expand access to data and AI skills training across Africa, the Americas, and India. We’re going to build communities of practice and develop learning pathways rooted in the actual realities of low- and middle-income contexts. This means governments, social impact organisations, and MSMEs will be equipped to engage with AI on their own terms. Not AI handed down from outside. Capacity built from within, by the people it is meant to serve.
What makes this partnership feel urgent to me is the moment we’re in. AI is already reshaping how institutions function, how research gets done, how decisions get made. The communities most affected by those changes are too often the least resourced to influence them. datocracy and The Carpentries share a stubborn belief that this doesn’t have to be the case. That the people most impacted deserve the skills, the voice, and the agency to shape what comes next.
We chose each other because we share values, not just objectives. DEI isn’t a checkbox for either of us. It’s the architecture.
I’m proud of what we’re building. I’m even prouder of who we’re building it with.
Read the full announcement on The Carpentries blog.
