Digital badges have become popular in education and business. These badges can be easily added to resumes, social media, or portfolios to increase a candidate’s employability. Thus, students see value in obtaining badges. This study explores badging and motivation in business and educational settings, and reviews adding badging to an online introductory programming class to reward students who participate in an optional programming competition. Student participation and comments are solicited and evaluated, then compared with a course that does not use badging. In addition, badging is explored as a motivating factor for informal learning in an adult education environment.