In late 2016, we took a gamble: we made DataCamp completely free for classroom use in secondary and higher education. We called this academic program DataCamp for the Classroom. All qualified educators can receive six months of free access to DataCamp for their students and you can apply via this link. We had two main drivers:

First, we believed then, as we do now, that we provide the absolute best platform for data education. We’ve seen many first-time learners in our DataCamp for the Classroom program continue to build their data skills using DataCamp upon graduating.

Second, and more importantly, we believe education is a basic human right that should be accessible to all. This is not a radical idea—it’s been widely agreed upon since the UN ratified it in their Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Unfortunately, reality is sadly still catching up. DataCamp for the Classroom is our contribution to getting the world and the next generation closer to education as a basic right.

It didn’t take long to see our initiative take off. As professors signed up and students began taking advantage of our full course catalog en masse, word of mouth about DataCamp went from a buzz to a boom. Currently, we have over 3,700 concurrent classrooms using the platform—a 59% increase from last year. These groups make up over 96,000 active student learners—an 85% increase. During this year-long period, the percentage of free academic learners who were being introduced to DataCamp through our academic program held steady at about 30%, meaning we’ve been continually reaching more people who have never used DataCamp. For a significant portion of these first-time users, DataCamp has been their first introduction to the world of data science and analytics. This makes everyone at our company feel extremely proud.

DataCamp for the Classroom shows no signs of slowing down. It has been used in over 180 countries by over 324,000 students. Applications for our academic program during the first half of 2020 are up almost 95% from the same period last year, and we expect those numbers to climb as more students plan to learn from home this fall than ever before. During this health crisis, we take heart in the fact that we are helping people become fluent in the languages of data at a time when they need it most.

Get started with DataCamp for the Classroom for free and start learning data science and analytics with students and professors from around the world. If you’re a student, tell your teacher about this opportunity and ask them to sign up for your class! If you’re an educator, sign up here.

Special thanks to Nathaniel Taylor-Leach and Gabriel de Selding for their contributions to this article.