Mark your calendars – this year’s Arduino Day will be Saturday March, 27, 2021! This is the annual, worldwide celebration in which the Arduino community gathers together to recognize Arduino achievements large and small, and everybody is invited to participate.
Over the past few years as participation in Arduino Day has increased, there have been over 3000 community initiatives as part of the day’s celebrations, everything from lectures and workshops to project demonstrations and exhibitions occurring in hundreds of countries around the globe.
Arduino Day 2021 Theme: “Undistancing: Open Makes Us Close”
Since “social distancing” has become part of the new normal since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers of this year’s Arduino Day have decided to focus on all the ways that open-source Arduino technology can bring people closer together, even when we are physically at a distance.
Isolation, loneliness, and detachment have become major problems as the pandemic has kept us apart from friends and family. However, many Arduino initiatives this past year have made It more possible than ever to connect with a community online, breaking down barriers and building new support networks.
In honor of all the ways Arduino has made it possible for people to connect in a year of quarantine and self-isolation, the theme of this year’s Arduino Day will be “Undistancing: Open Makes us Close.” The neologism “Undistancing” emphasizes how we can use technology to forge connections even when we have to maintain physical distancing.
With this phrase “Undistancing: Open Makes us Close,” the organizers of this year’s Arduino Day are encouraging us to reflect upon and celebrate all the ways that Arduino’s open-source technology can keep us feeling closely linked and supported, even if only through virtual connections.
As the Arduino team describes it: 
“UNDISTANCING conveys the disruptive power of Arduino users to unite in a time when it’s needed more than ever.
OPEN MAKES US CLOSE represents the ability of our community to transform a burden into a chance to connect, collaborate, and create as one. It’s a call to shorten as many distances as possible and to explore new ideas and technologies, together.”
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