WordCamp News

WordCamp Entebbe 2023: An Amazing Recap

WordCamp Entebbe, a two-day event that took place on the 10th and 11th of March, 2023, was a resounding success and was attended by over 200 people. The event, which was focused on the WordPress content management system, drew attendees from across Uganda and beyond. However, what made this event stand out was its commitment to gender diversity in the tech industry.

The organizers of WordCamp Entebbe made a concerted effort to ensure that women were well-represented at the event. The gender diversity program featured female speakers and student attendees. This program was designed to inspire more women to pursue careers in technology, and it proved to be a huge success.

A person stands on a stage with a microphone.
The group poses for a photo.
Students pose for a group photo with the lead organiser Arthur Kasirye
The group poses for a photo.
Students arriving at the WordCamp

Over the course of the two-day event, attendees had the opportunity to attend a wide range of sessions, workshops, and presentations. Many of these were led by female speakers who shared their experiences and expertise with the audience. 

The topics covered ranged from beginner-level introductions to WordPress to more advanced topics such as website optimization, content creation, and web security.

One of the most inspiring sessions of the event was a panel discussion on women in tech. This session featured female leaders in the Ugandan tech industry who shared their experiences and insights with the audience. The panelists talked about the challenges they had faced as women in a male-dominated industry and offered advice on how to overcome those challenges.

A group is sitting in chairs.
Women Panel at the Wordcamp
The group poses for a photo.

Another highlight of WordCamp Entebbe was the student program. This program provided an opportunity for students to attend the event and learn more about WordPress and the tech industry in general. The students were able to attend workshops and presentations, network with professionals in the industry, and gain valuable insights into the world of tech as well as introduced to the new study curriculum of the Directorate of Industrial Training (DIT) a Ugandan quality assurance directorate offering nationally, regionally and internationally recognized quality assurance services for the Business, Technical, Vocational Education and Training (BTVET) were students can use WordPress in their final year projects and graded on a national level.

A group is observing a laptop.
Students learning to install WordPress website

This year’s WordCamp was led by Kasirye Arthur the leader of the WordPress Community in Entebbe who is also a community lead for Woocommerce and Elementor

Overall, WordCamp Entebbe was a hugely successful event that demonstrated the power of gender diversity in the tech industry. 

By creating a program that was focused on empowering women in Tech, the organizers of this event helped to inspire a new generation of female technologists. It is our hope that more events like WordCamp Entebbe will be organized even in schools so that we can continue to build a more diverse and inclusive tech industry. 

The group poses for a photo.
WordCamp Entebbe organising Team
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Get your tickets for WordCamp Kerala 2023 on March 25th!

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!

A group of people listening to a session, and a man with a mic asking a question at WordCamp Kochi 2017.

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.

A group of non-male attendees posing for a picture at WordCamp Kochi 2018

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!

Categories Events, Sessions, Speakers, Sponsors, Volunteers, WordCamp Tickets, WordCamps | Tags , , , , , , | Comments are off for this post

WooCommerce sponsors WordPress community events across the globe

We’re very grateful to WooCommerce for sponsoring WordPress community events all around the world at the Bronze level again in 2023! WooCommerce’s support helps make local community events (like WordPress meetup groups and WordCamps) better for WordPress enthusiasts and easier to organize for our wonderful group of hardworking volunteers.

WooCommerce logo

WooCommerce is a customizable, open-source eCommerce platform built on WordPress. 

Sell anything online with the flexibility and freedom of the world’s most popular CMS.

Whether you’re selling a few handcrafted items to a niche market, taking an existing business online, or going global with an enterprise-level eCommerce business WooCommerce gets you set up and selling fast, scaling securely as you grow.

Your content is forever yours and customizable down to the button color. Plus you’re joining a supportive, global community of developers and store owners.

Developed and supported by a distributed team, WooCommerce is powered by Automattic, the creators of Jetpack and WordPress.com.

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Bluehost supports WordPress community events worldwide

We can’t thank Bluehost enough for their continued support as a sponsor for the global WordPress community! Their support of WordPress community events around the globe at our Gold level!

Bluehost logo

Bluehost has been a WordPress partner since 2005 and powers over 1 million WordPress sites worldwide. Their objective is to help customers, whether novice or pro, create a thriving online presence at an affordable price. With a team of in-house tech experts available 24/7, Bluehost dedicates time and resources to providing the best support and services in the industry. Join millions of other site owners and see what Bluehost can do for you and your online presence.

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Thanks to Automattic for sponsoring community events worldwide

We couldn’t be happier to welcome Automattic to the WordPress global community sponsorship program in 2023! They’re sponsoring at the Gold level in all regions, supporting official WordPress community events across the globe.

Automattic logo global sponsorship 2023

At Automattic, we are passionate about making the web a better place.

We are the people behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, WordPress VIP, Simplenote, Longreads, WPScan, Akismet, Gravatar, Crowdsignal, Cloudup, Tumblr, Day One, Pocket Casts, and more. We believe in making the web a better place.

We’re a distributed company with 2,007 Automatticians in 97 countries speaking 123 different languages. We’re committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and our common goal is to democratize publishing and commerce so that anyone with a story can tell it, and anyone with a product can sell it, regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or where they live in the world.

We believe in Open Source and the vast majority of our work is available under the GPL.

We strive to live by the Automattic Creed.

Automattic is a Most Loved Company and Disability Confident Committed. (Here’s what that might mean for you.) Come work with us.

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GoDaddy joins the WordPress global community sponsorship program in 2023

Please join us in welcoming GoDaddy to the 2023 WordPress global community sponsorship program! GoDaddy’s pledge to sponsor all official WordPress community events (WordCamps, Meetups, and more) all around the world provides support and stability to our hardworking crew of volunteer event organizers. Thanks for everything, GoDaddy!

GoDaddy logo global sponsorship 2023

At GoDaddy, our mission is to empower a worldwide community of entrepreneurs by giving them all the help and tools they need to grow online — including a simpler, safer WordPress experience. 

We champion our Makers of the Web by delivering a suite of WordPress solutions that enable fast and easy setup and then enables users to harness all the power of the world’s most popular CMS. 

The GoDaddy Pro Community was built by and for website designers and developers. Whether you’re new to web design or growing your existing business, you’ll find free tools, products, education, and expert support to help you more efficiently create and maintain beautiful sites — and wow clients.

We provide a Managed WordPress experience that is as easy as it is effective. The latest version of WordPress comes pre-installed with exclusive themes, plugins, and tools to get you up and running quickly, with automated backups, updates, and malware removal so our Pros can spend less time on monotonous maintenance, and more time building their businesses.GoDaddy Pro works tirelessly to foster an active, nurturing community, with initiatives including the sponsorship of WordCamps globally, weekly GoDaddy Pro Meetups, our free GoDaddy Pro Academy courses, and our GoDaddy Pro Discussions Group. We’re proud to be a partner of the WordPress community and look forward to witnessing all the individual greatness that our efforts help support.

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Thanks to Weglot for supporting the global WordPress community

Many thanks to Weglot for their support of the WordPress global community sponsorship program at the Gold level! The sponsorship that Weglot and other global sponsors provide to WordPress community events is truly invaluable. Weglot has been part of this program since 2022, and we couldn’t be more grateful!

weglot logo

Weglot is a WordPress multilingual plugin to translate and display your website in multiple languages. It provides a fast first layer of automated translation which you can easily edit yourself or by adding teammates, or collaborate with pro-translators through the Weglot dashboard. Trusted by more than 60,000 website owners and developers and with a 5-star rating on the WordPress directory (1000+ reviews) – you can have a multilingual website up and running in minutes.

Key benefits include:

  • Simple and quick set-up
  • Multilingual SEO best practices (translated URLs & metadata)
  • Compatibility with any Themes and Plugins (incl. WooCommerce)
  • Automatic and human translations
  • A unique dashboard with an ‘in context editor’, easily edit translations & invite teammates to collaborate on projects
  • Expert support: a fully dedicated technical support team at your disposal

Learn more at Weglot.

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WordCamp Entebbe: First Wordcamp to happen in Africa in 2023 is on!

WordCamp Entebbe 2023 is set to be a major community event for WordPress developers, website designers, online publishers, students, and teachers to come together and share knowledge and experiences, network with other WordPress users, and gain inspiration for their work. Taking place on Friday, March 10th and Saturday, March 11th at the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre (UWEC) in Entebbe City, this WordCamp will be the first to happen in Africa and is poised to be a memorable event for all attendees.

The event will feature a range of activities, including beginner’s training, inspirational talks, showcases, best practices, and the latest trends in WordPress development. In addition, there will be a Women in Tech panel discussion, aimed at inspiring and empowering women-led businesses to thrive in the technology industry. A Teacher’s Workshop will explore the integration of WordPress in the local education curriculum, providing teachers with the tools and resources they need to introduce WordPress to their students for web design projects and assessments.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to take a free tour of the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Center, where they can learn about the animals of Uganda and the ecosystems in which they live. The center, which was founded in the 1950s to accommodate confiscated and injured wildlife, has grown considerably in recent years and is considered a premier facility for showcasing wildlife on the African continent.

Accommodation options are available for those traveling to Entebbe for the first time. Attendees can find a list of hotels and guest houses through booking.com https://bit.ly/entebbehotels or by contacting the WordCamp team at entebbe@wordcamp.org for more information and guidance. The full schedule of activities will be published soon, and we look forward to welcoming you to WordCamp Entebbe 2023!

Get Involved

There are several ways to get involved! Check out the details below:

Join the discussion via #WordCampEbbs hashtag on Twitter

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