Arduino

Arduino is one of the most influential open-source projects in the history of modern electronics, born in 2005 as an educational initiative at the Interaction Design Institute of Ivrea, Piedmont, created by Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, and David Mellis. The idea was radical in its simplicity: create an affordable, accessible programmable circuit board that would allow designers, artists, and students to build interactive prototypes without needing to master electronic engineering. The impact was extraordinary. Arduino boards — the Uno, Mega, Nano, and dozens of variants — became the de facto standard for prototyping in the maker movement, IoT, educational robotics, and research. Millions of units sold worldwide, an ecosystem of open-source libraries, expansion shields, and tutorials that lowered the entry barrier to programmable electronics for entire generations. Arduino became a full company — Arduino AG — with offices in Switzerland and a product line spanning microcontrollers, IoT boards, and development software. In 2023, Qualcomm acquired a significant stake, integrating the maker brand into the orbit of major tech players. But the heart remains open-source: firmware, hardware schematics, and the IDE are freely available and modifiable, keeping alive the original philosophy of democratising electronics.