The southern state of Kerala in India is all set to host its first regional WordCamp – WordCamp Kerala 2023 on March 25, 2023 (Saturday) at IMA House, Kochi!
The WordPress community in Kerala is not new – it had its humble beginnings in 2014, when it kicked off with an informal local meetup in Kochi. The love for WordPress grew the community slowly, but surely, which eventually spread out to multiple cities in the state. Together the community organized scores of local meetup events and three editions of WordCamp Kochi (2017, 2018, and 2019) before the COVID-19 pandemic shut everything down. Even during the pandemic, our community stayed active by organizing online events together under a “WordPress Kerala” banner. As the global health situation improved in 2022, our community started organizing in-person events again. A strong desire to organize a WordCamp united members the Kerala WordPress Community. As a result, the local WordPress Meetup groups of Trivandrum, Kochi, Kozhikode, and Palakkad, have decided to bounce back by organizing WordCamp Kerala 2023!
What makes WordCamp Kerala unique
Our event promises to be as unique as our location and host state. Kerala is known as “God’s own country” and was selected by the New York Times as one of the must-visit places in 2023. In 1999, Kerala made it to National Geographic’s list of 10 Paradises of the world too.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
At WordCamp Kerala, one of our main priorities is to ensure that every voice is heard. We are working hard to ensure that our event is as diverse and inclusive as possible, from our organizing team to our speaker roster, and every aspect of our event and its planning.
Our aim is to present a speaker lineup that is as diverse as possible, by ensuring that non-male applicants and applicants from marginalized backgrounds have excellent representation in our roster. To facilitate the same, we collaborated with the WP Diversity group of the Make/Community Team to hold a successful diverse speaker workshop led by Jill Binder on January 28th – the workshop had 25 attendees, and resulted in at least seven unique speaker applications!
Additionally, our event aims to have something for folks from all backgrounds – from advanced technical workshops to sessions aimed at every WordPress professional. For this WordCamp, we are also doing our best to facilitate excellent networking opportunities between attendees, which are one of the biggest strengths of WordCamps.
An Eco-friendly WordCamp
The event is planned as eco-friendly and adequate plans are in place to ensure that no harm is done to the environment at any stage of the event. It includes avoiding plastic items and using LED televisions for sponsor branding as opposed to banners to save our environment. We are even thinking of ways to reduce our environmental footprint in every aspect of event planning as well.
Get involved
There are several ways to become a part of this exciting event!
- Grab your tickets to attend this event!
WordCamp Kerala tickets are priced at an affordable INR 500 (~USD $6) per attendee. As of late February 2023, we have sold more than half of our total tickets available for public (we are planning 500 total participants at our event including volunteers, speakers, and sponsors), and there is a high probability that we may sell out way before the event date. Get your tickets now! - Last chance to apply to speak at WordCamp Kerala!
Due to popular demand, we have extended our deadline for call for speakers. Apply to speak at WordCamp Kerala 2023 before February 28th 2023, 11:59 PM IST. - Sponsor WordCamp Kerala
We received an unprecedented response to our call for sponsors, and most of our sponsorship tiers have sold out. A big thanks to our community for this warm response and support! Nonetheless, we still have some available sponsorship options for interested applicants. - Apply to be a Volunteer and be a part of the team that helps organize WordCamp Kerala 2023. Deadline: February 28th 2023, 11:59 PM IST.
And don’t forget to post about this event on your social media handles for all WordPress enthusiasts. Feel free to Share about us on Twitter, write about us on LinkedIn, or post about us on Facebook. Psst… You can also post about our event on your (WordPress-powered) blog or on Tumblr! Don’t forget to join the discussion on WordCamp Kerala 2023 using the hashtag #WCKerala hashtag on all social media platforms.
Looking forward to seeing you at our lovely little event celebrating WordPress, at the beautiful coastal city of Kochi, on March 25th, 2023!