Recap: Learning Rust from Scratch with Mainmatter at Barcelona’s First-Ever Upskilling Week

On June 30th, Rust Foundation Silver Member Mainmatter presented “Learn Rust from Scratch”: a workshop across two evenings at Barcelona’s inaugural Upskilling Week. Facilitated by Magnus Markling at Cibernàrium 22@, the sessions brought together learners from various backgrounds (many of them with no prior Rust experience) for a deep dive into the language, its standard library, and its testing and async capabilities.

The timing gave the workshop some extra significance: just days earlier, Mainmatter was named a founding provider in the Rust Foundation Trusted Training (RFTT) program, a new accreditation launched to give learners a trusted signal of quality when choosing Rust training. Through the workshop, attendees got an introduction to Rust from one of the first training organizations to carry the Rust Foundation’s official stamp of approval!

How It Went

Across the two days, attendees spent most of their time heads-down writing code, working through exercises with automated solution-checking while Magnus from the Mainmatter team circulated for 1:1 guidance.

Reflecting on the workshop, Magnus said, “Despite the heat wave, people with diverse technical backgrounds—from CS majors and BI engineers to product owners and casual vibe coders—showed up, all eager to learn Rust. Everyone was equally fascinated and humbled by the language.”

He also noted that “many discussions centered on why Rust is becoming increasingly popular, when to choose it, and the areas where it shines most brightly.”

What’s Next for Attendees

Participants who completed the workshop are now eligible for their Rust Foundation Workshop Completion Badge via Credly: a public, verifiable marker of the skills they built over the two days. 

For those looking to go deeper, Mainmatter recently opened early access to The C to Rust Migration Book, a self-paced course on migrating production C codebases to safe, idiomatic Rust. We see this as a natural next step for anyone who works with a C codebase and has the Rust fundamentals down. And for those who’d rather learn in person again, Mainmatter’s EuroRust conference lands in Barcelona this October! Learn more and register for EuroRust here. 

Thanks to everyone who joined, and to Mainmatter and the Mobile World Capital Foundation for making it happen. Stay tuned for more from the Rust Foundation on upskilling opportunities across the ecosystem!