From “Drupal Grand Master” to “Triple Certified”

Acquia coined the term “Drupal Grand Master” in 2015 to acknowledge the high qualification of those who completed Drupal Certification exams for developer, front-end specialist, and back-end specialist. In 2021, we decided to change the name to reflect more inclusive language.

And, in the spirit of Open Source, we crowdsourced ideas for the new name with the help of the Drupal community. The result is — drumroll, please — “Acquia Triple Certified Drupal Expert” or, the shortened version, “Triple Certified.”

The words we use matter. They make a big difference toward eliminating subtle forms of racism, sexism and more in the technology industry. In recent years, the tech community has increasingly embraced inclusive language. For example, GitHub replaced its “master” terminology with “main,” and Chromium and Android swapped “blacklist/whitelist” with “blocklist/allowlist.”

The Drupal community has also taken important steps to improve diversity and inclusion, starting with our language. In 2018, Drupal changed the user demographic forms to give community members more options on how they choose to identify themselves. Drupal has also doubled down on accessibility and encouraged companies to sponsor underrepresented Drupal contributors.

In addition, Acquia has made it easier to access free training to gain Triple Certification, as well as other Drupal and Acquia certifications. Register on the community branch of Acquia Academy or learn more about certification here.  

There’s still work to be done to make Drupal a more diverse and inclusive open source community, but being more mindful of the words we use is a good step. Thanks to the 278 people who submitted ideas for the new Acquia Drupal Certification name, and congratulations to the winning submissions!