Happy Birthday to us
Almost exactly ten years ago today, thousands of you set your alarms, and woke on leap-day morning to discover that we’d started selling Raspberry Pi computers. By the time our all-volunteer team gathered in the pub that evening for celebratory drinks, our licensees Farnell and RS Components had taken over 100,000 orders (despite struggling to keep their websites online under the load); we had (briefly) out-trended Lady Gaga; and Raspberry Pi was on the road to becoming a little larger than we’d planned.
A group of us had founded the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2008, aiming to reverse the decline in applications to study Computer Science at Cambridge by providing young people with a fun, robust, low-cost computer with which they could learn to program. In May of 2011, we demoed a prototype to Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC; the surprise popularity of his ensuing blog post was the shot in the arm we needed to get the project over the finish line.
The nine months between Rory’s blog post and the launch had been a whirlwind of activity: Liz had built us a blog, a forum, and a substantial social media following; Pete had designed (and redesigned) the final product almost from scratch; and I had had to figure out how to actually build it in volume, for our target price, and with very little capital to play with.
The following nine months were dominated by the work needed to get those first orders built and into people’s hands. After some early road bumps, first production units arrived in the UK at the end of March, and volumes continued to ramp through the spring. By the end of October, we’d shipped our launch-day orders; taken Raspberry Pi to Maker Faires in the Bay Area and New York; demoed a working prototype of the first Camera Board; started building Raspberry Pi at the Sony UK Technology Centre in South Wales; doubled the shipping memory capacity of Model B to 512MB; and produced first samples of the cut-down $25 Model A.
In the end, we sold a million units in our first twelve months. And by the end of that time, we had our first office, and our first full-time employees: Liz, Gordon, and James. We’re all still here ten years later.
Many recognisable elements of the wider Raspberry Pi world were already in place too. Mike Thompson and Peter Green started work on Raspbian, the ARMv6 hard-float port of Debian which today underpins Raspberry Pi OS, in March. In May, Liam “Hexxeh” McLoughlin released the first version of rpi_update, and Ash Stone, Jason Davies, and Tim Cox published the first issue of The MagPi. In July, Paul Beech and Jon Williamson launched the Pibow layer case, and James Abela organised the first Cambridge Raspberry Jam; under Mike Horne and Tim Richardson’s stewardship this would later evolve into CamJam, and spawn the enduringly popular PiWars events.
In the ten years since, we’ve built a company, a charitable foundation, and a movement that has begun to change the world.
We’ve launched five more generations of the core Raspberry Pi platform, starting with Model 1B+ in 2014, and culminating with Model 4B in 2019. We’ve built Compute Modules and all-in-one PCs, and produced cameras, displays, cases, cables, and a whole planet of HATs. Our products have flown under weather balloons; travelled to the International Space Station, penguin colonies in Antarctica, the insides of volcanoes, and the bottom of the sea; and been built into supercomputers, cucumber sorters, and hospital ventilators. Tens of thousands of children used them to study at home during the pandemic.
To date, we’ve sold over 45 million Raspberry Pi computers. Our profits have helped to fund the work of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which has grown over the last ten years to become one of the most important global players in STEM education. The Foundation creates curricula and teacher training programmes that are helping to improve the quality of computing education in tens of thousands of schools; millions of young people are learning how to program through their free online resources, networks of Code Clubs and CoderDojos, and partnerships with youth and community organisations; and their world-class research is helping to advance our understanding of what works, and what doesn’t, in the field.
But our own efforts have been dwarfed by those of our community. We owe a debt of gratitude to the tens of thousands of volunteers, developers, suppliers, resellers, teachers, and parents, who have contributed to our work, and taken Raspberry Pi products, and the Raspberry Pi mission, out into the world. Some of the happiest hours of my life have been spent eating pizza, puffin, or yakitori; drinking soda, beer, or soju; or just hanging out, with Raspberry Pi fans around the world. As the pandemic recedes, we’ll be getting out there again: you’re the reason we do this, and your energy drives us forward.
It’s been a wild ride. So, here’s to ten years of Raspberry Pi, and here’s to what we’ll all do, together, in the next ten.
50 comments
cycool29
Happy Birthday! 🎉🎂
laurent
Happy birthday Raspberry Pi !
Here since the begining, and proudly have the T-shirt shipped with the very first orders. Many thanks for the incredible job you’ve done.
Naveen
Happy birthday! And, thanks a lots for making such a complete package. It is not only a computer but a whole community, education platform and much more! I wish next coming years will be more productive for all of us.
Jorn Jensen
Happy birthday :)
We cannot give you a hug big enough to say properly thankyou for everything you do every day.
Brian Nrorornronrnr.
I remember that morning 10 years ago, both websites were completely unusable even before you had started selling them. Great job lads.
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
That’s ladies to you.
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker
😉
Erick Truter
Happy Birthday! Thank you for all the years of great fun projects. Looking forward to what the future holds.
Bruce
Congratulations to the Raspberry Pi team and community for what has been and I’m sure will continue to be an amazing journey transforming “compute” to mean “create”.
Luciano
What a wonderful story and company! Thanks for making computing and electronics to everyone :)
Stewart Watkiss
Happy Birthday.
Such an amazing 10 years.
I wanted one the first time I heard about it, but didn’t realise quite how big this would be or how much it would influence parts of my life.
I’ve put together a video with some of my favourite projects and some of the ways I’ve been involved in the community.
https://youtu.be/7HcNF4D-QE8
Here’s to the next 10 years, I’m sure they will be just as exciting.
Felix Es.
I remember when I was 12 Years old and I heard about this new little computer named “raspberry pi”. My birthday was
coming and so I got one – my first own Computer ever!
It’s been a long road since then. It’s only reasonable to say that I have several models at home and still uses even the “older” ones like the RPi 2B.
What you have done really changed everything! You enabled people with low money to get a working computer. You gave Linux a new showplace – and to be honest: WHO is using Windows on a Pi, even if it is possible with some versions?
…and then you made your own chip: A thing way more powerfull than any Atmege build on an (“typical”) Arduino while being a lot cheaper.
I really hope, that we hear from all of you a lot more in the following years! You are all doing fantastic work.
Muralidharan Venugopalan
Happy birthday . Raspberry pi
Shafeeq
A big hug for you everything you do every day…
Thank you and be here again for a long time…
Tony McGuire
Happy Birthday. I can say when I first seen the ad for your Raspberry PI 1 (256MB) at the time I thought I have to get one which I did and now almost have one of each. I also loved the PiMag with the free computer (Pi Zero) on the cover and I did buy a copy and that was when I seen the first Pi Zero but had a load of ideas for it and bought a few more. I had one in a car park meter on till the original board was repaired and I still have that Pi somewhere with the custom lead that I made.
Its nice to see you go from strength to strength. Here is to another 10 years.
Gareth Qually
Congratulations everyone and thank you for creating this amazing product and community. My life has never been the same since.
Atulmaharaj
This is such an inspiring journey! RPi has made computing so much more affordable. While I still love tinkering with the RPi4 that I have, I often recommend it to kids who want to start their IoT journey or learn coding in general. Thanks so much and wishing you many more years of amazing times ahead!
Paul Beech
Happy anniversary to the whole crew. It’s been the best thing in life to come along for the journey.
I hope and expect it to be another stellar decade of market revolution so everyone can get their hands on tech and do something with it, from the everyday to the awesome 🤩
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
Paul! BIG hugs to you and the rest of the good ship Pim. It’s been a hell of a journey, hasn’t it!
Martin Jones
I remember reading that Ebon had re-mortgaged the house to get the first units built and thinking it was a brave move.
But that brave move gave so much to everyone. I have lost count of how many Raspberry pi’s I have performing all sorts of tasks around our home.
I admire the guts Ebon and Liz had to put everything on the line for this project and have taken on board the fact that you get nowhere if you wait for someone else to do stuff and just get on with it putting everything into it. it will pay off in the end.
RoversX
Happy birthday Raspberry Pi ! Thanks for bringing everyone so many amazing products! So many people already get a chance to learn all these interesting things. Look forward to the next 10 years of Raspberry!
MynahSeed
Yes! Sending raspberry pi all my appreciation! Good luck!
Christian Treczoks
It’s ten years already! How time flies!
I proudly wear the shirt I got for being among the first people to order the RPi on that website-crashing day. I still remember that you told us that you had 10k units ready, 5k for each of the distributors, and were hopig that it would not take months to sell them…
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
I remember that too. Painfully. :)
Mike Ransom
I have been retired for ten years. Seems like only yesterday I bought a Pi 1 to use as a front end for a Windows Media Center PC. I have had so much fun with projects such as XBMC/OSMC, RetroPie, Pi OS, and most recently, PosterPi, to display movie posters and LP album covers on a vertically-mounted TV. Thanks!
Dianne Skoll
I own quite a number of Raspberry Pi computers, all of which are hard at work doing useful things for me. Congratulations on your anniversary, and congratulations on building such a great community with a very good software ecosystem.
endsen
Happy birthday!hope you could be better.Raspberry pi is so small that I can put it in my pocket.where I reach to,and where it word too!
jeanmichel martin
Joyeux anniversaire à la Fondation qui a dans ses mains sans doute le projet le plus innovant de ces dernières années permettant à tout à chacun d’accéder au monde de l’informatique et du numérique.
Jeff Geerling
Happy Birthday, and I’m excited to see what comes in the next 10 years!
What amazed me most is how the Pi hardware has grown to be a lot more flexible in a lot more situations—yet it’s also still the best way to introduce kids to computing (in my opinion). My kids are excited when we pull out the Pi 400 and Pico and do something new.
Matt Richardson
I remember clear as day the first time I had ever held a Raspberry Pi. It still took me some time before I had believed that I was holding a desktop computer priced at $35. When I did finally believe it, I realized that it was going to make a huge difference in the world. That it did, and it has a very bright future ahead. Happy birthday, Raspberry Pi!
Raspberry Pi Staff Liz Upton
You’re a big part of the reason we’re able to do this thing as well as we do, Matt. Hugs all round!
:22
Well done buddy!
andrum99
Congrats to you all 😁 and kudos to the folks who produced the wee video.
Lew Wetzel
Great work you have done! So many are benefitting from your efforts. Never forget your roots and keep on doing what you do.
GONGRATULATIONS!!!!
Glenn NIcholls
My dad decided to learn programming at the tender age of 78 and bought a model B. He learnt python using it and built a lego + papier mache tortoise robot with the pi mounted inside (‘Turbo-tortoise’). He loved it. He died during the pandemic but I have a lot of happy memories helping him debug his stuff on the pi.
Peter Drew
From the Pi model b to pi4, pico and Zero2, with you all the way.
Got me back to the hobby I loved, Thanks and, Oh! Happy Birthday.
Chris Stagg
Congrats on a great decade, there’s no doubt you have changed the world with products and educational endeavor that has helped the most disadvantaged to gain skills they would likely had not explored without you. And also congrats to everyone who made the project more fruitful and to help spread the goodness.
Here’s to another decade, with the way the last one’s gone, the next will be even more epic.
Carl
A brilliant 10 year run – may it continue despite the massive supply challenges of our day. I may not be in the original target market, but I’m thrilled to benefit from second-order effects (you’re never too old to learn!) and spread the word about this marvelously affordable and useful general-purpose computer.
Lester Axel
Happy Birthday Rasp.
Ali Edis
Happy birthday Raspberry pi
Anders Jackson
Gratulationer på 10-årsdagen!
Congratulations on 10 years!
PiGraham
Happy Birthday!
James McDowell
My first Pi was a while back. It was interesting and I learned how we didn’t need such massive machines to make things work. I have since purchased several more. I have 2 of them working full time as my 3D printer controllers. Keep up the work! We need some boards out!
Chris
I remember getting my first Raspberry Pi and thinking “What do I need this for?”. Move forward years later, I still keep finding new things to do on it!
Happy Birthday and good luck for the future.
Andy
Happy Birthday! I remember that first day, and the lead up to it. Good times! :)
Dr. Wilson Liao
Happy Birthday to the Raspberry Pi team, I am looking forward to next 10 years of Raspberry Pi’s growth most challenging and exciting journey. Thank you.
Sean McManus
Congratulations on the first ten years. I remember ordering stickers as part of a fundraiser in the early days before the first Raspberry Pi was available, and scrambling to buy a Raspberry Pi when it came out. The original Raspberry Pi was groundbreaking, but there’s a been a huge evolution since then and today’s machines are incredibly powerful, as well as supporting the tinkering and coding we love. The Raspberry Pi got me back into programming and has given me many creative, volunteering, and professional opportunities. Here’s to the next ten years.
Sunil Sharma
I still remember when i bought raspberry pi 5 years back when i was in college it was the first step i took towards programming and created so many projects with it thanks for such amazing tool :)
Daniel Seemann
Happy birthday Raspberry Pi,
the whole ecosystem is just awesome !
Solomon
Congratulations. Happy birthday in arrears. You have been a motivation over these years. What you have done really changed everything! You enabled people with low income to get a working computer. You gave Linux a new showplace. A big thanks to you. May you live long.
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