Long-term sustained investment and involvement in biodiversity informatics is crucially dependent on the involvement of persons well-versed in the field, capable of debating and discussing at the highest levels, and capable of implementing ideas and initiatives in the form of real, large-scale data and analyses. In this sense, the argument can be made that the typical ‘capacity-building’ initiative is inadequate and woefully maladapted to this challenge; a much more effective solution is that of graduate training at the highest levels, producing, in effect, high-level biodiversity scientists capable of leading and implementing biodiversity informatics initiatives in their home countries. The Biodiversity Informatics Training Curriculum (BITC) represents a partial, initial, intermediate step in this latter direction: in-person training sessions of 1-2 weeks are held at cities across Africa, in which African trainees interact directly with world experts in the topic at hand; all sessions are captured digitally and shared globally via YouTube. To date, BITC videos have seen more than 55,000 views and the videos have accumulated more than 288,000 minutes of viewership, and the project channel has almost 600 subscribers. In some senses, the project has been successful: buy-in has been considerable. The major objective of getting ‘trainees’ through to Ph.D.s, however, remains a significant challenge that is only beginning to be addressed. To this end, several BITC trainees have established collaborations and emerging studentships with BITC experts, and BITC is exploring establishment of online, ‘distance’ masters degrees at developing-world universities. Whether providing global opportunities for intensive training and capacity-building and masters degrees can and will translate into Ph.D.-level training for more developing-world scientists, who can lead biodiversity informatics investment and implementation in their countries, remains to be seen.