Arduino

Arduino started in 2005 as a project for students at the Design Institute of Ivrea, Italy. At that time program students used a “BASIC Stamp” at a cost of $100, considered expensive for students. Casey Reas, one of the founders, taught at Ivrea.
A hardware thesis was contributed for a wiring design by Colombian student Hernando Barragan. After the wiring platform was complete, researchers worked to make it cheaper, lighter, less expensive, and available to the open source community. The school eventually closed down, so these researchers, one of them David Cuartielles promoted the idea.