Our Mission and Purpose

The Association for Software Testing is dedicated to advancing the understanding of the science and practice of software testing according to Context-Driven principles.

The Association for Software Testing (AST)  is an international non-profit professional association with members in over 50 countries. AST is dedicated and strives to build a testing community that views the role of testing as skilled, relevant, and essential to the production of faster, better, and less expensive software products. We value a scientific approach to developing and evaluating techniques, processes, and tools. We believe that a self-aware, self-critical attitude is essential to understanding and assessing the impact of new ideas on the practice of testing.

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News

• AST Volunteer Spotlight – Michael Corum I’m Michael Corum, from Knoxville, Tennessee in the US. I grew up here in Knoxville, and have lived here most of my life, except for a short time in Cincinnati, Ohio and two years in the US Army, where I served as a medic stationed in various parts of Texas. I got into software testing while ...
• Call for Volunteers: CAST Sponsorship Coordinators We have another volunteer opportunity to ask our membership for help with. Previously, we’ve asked for help with the AST3 to help manage our technology, and we are always looking for help with teaching BBST Courses. Both of these opportunities are still open for your contributions. This particular request is hoping to locate 2+ people who will ...
• Call for Volunteers: AST Technology Team One of the first signs that this year’s AST board was going to work well together was unanimous agreement that we would not try to do everything ourselves, and that there is more to do than 7 people with families and jobs can handle. We agreed to ask our membership for help, and at the same time, ...
• New AST Logo When the new board was sat in October, we had already been talking about our vision for AST’s future. AST has survived for over a decade, though a few years ago, it was a pretty close thing. AST exists today because people fought for it, and brought AST back to being healthier than ever. We ...
• A Letter From The New President This October started my second year as a member of the AST board of directors. Over the last year, with the help of several people, we were able to bring the WHOSE skill book live, and also begin refreshing exercises and course material in the AST BBST class series. I am still very passionate about ...
• Announcing BBST Scholarships As we continue to update the BBST course material to help keep the courses relevant and provide a richer learning experience for students and instructors, we also look for additional ways to make the courses available to more people. While we believe that BBST courses offered through the AST are reasonably priced, especially when compared to ...
• AST Volunteer Spotlight: Aleksandar Simic We’re proud to introduce a new feature, the Volunteer Spotlight.  We wanted to shine some light on all of the people who work behind the scenes at AST, how much they help our organization, what they do for AST, and why they do it. AST runs on volunteers who are investing their time and energy ...
• AST Grant Program, GRTesters Experience Report Grand Rapids Testers (GRTesters), a testing meetup group in Grand Rapids, Michigan, received a grant in 2013 to help cover the costs of Meetup.com.  In 2015, GRTesters received another grant to help with those costs. An average of 12 to 25 testers, developers and others involved in software meet monthly to discuss topics in and ...