Page - 184 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

184 I. Trejos-Zelaya In Costa Rica, companies such as Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Hewlett- Packard prompted their engineers to seek certifications by the BCS’s Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB), prior to becoming a member country of the HASTQB Regional Board within the ISTQB. Before that, from 2003 to 2010, courses for preparing for ASQ’s Certified Software Quality Engineer were run by Cenfotec (www.ucenfotec.ac.cr); some 120 professionals hold the CSQE in Costa Rica,mostof themworkinginthebiomedicaldevicesector.ASQ’simpacthasbeen wider and long-standing in the Manufacturing and Life Sciences sectors in Costa Rica (certificationsonQualityAuditor,QualityEngineer,Six SigmaBlack Belt,Six SigmaGreenBelt, SixSigmaYellowBelt). ISTQBprofessionalcertifications insoftware testinghavebeengrowingsteadily in Hispanic America in recent years. At the close of 2018, 7499 professionals had earnedoneormore ISTQBcertifications.Thiscanbeobservedin Fig.1. Hispanic America follows the worldwide trend of Foundation being the most soughtafter certification level, as canbeseen inFig. 2. Figure 3 shows the distribution of certified professionals per country in the HispanicAmerica region. It is clear that Colombia leads the pack in Hispanic America. Costa Rica’s progress since 2013hasbeensteady,due to the growth in demandfor certifications and market recognition of software testing and software quality assurance as professionalfieldsofendeavour.This canbeseen inFig. 4. Costa Rica’s growth can be traced to a very productive collaboration between academia and industry. Starting around 1999, some universities have offered scant and scattered trainingon software quality assurance and software testing, but more frequentlysinceyear2014—withUniversidadCenfotec taking the leadsince2004. Fig. 1 Evolution of ISTQB Software Testing certifications in Hispanic America 2008–2018