Are you ready for 2017?

Thank you all for coming to WordCamp Singapore 2016.

We started off with small goals and lots of worries on our side. WordPress was not huge in Singapore and the progressive nature of our society made it really daunting to attempt to run a conference with an almost entirely sponsored budget.

2 years ago, after we had restarted the WordPress Singapore community from the then inactive WordPress User Group Singapore, we started talking about WordCamp Singapore.

The fact that it happened is still sinking in. But we know that we enjoyed every single moment with every single person that attended.

This time, we had speakers, attendees, sponsors and volunteers from Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Australia, Russia, China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, United Kingdom, Poland,  and went from an initial projected 100 attendees to a whooping 230.

Planning for WordCamp Singapore 2017 has already started but before we are able to do anything really meaningful – we need your help to give us some feedback for this year’s WordCamp. You can do so at the Google Form here.

Lastly, if you have taken any photos and you would like to share, please drop us a link to a storage or let us know of alternatives method via singapore-at-wordcamp-dot-org.

Come check out our WordCamp schedule!

Only a few weeks to WordCamp Singapore 2016, and we are super excited to announce our WordCamp Singapore 2016 schedule!

A wide variety of interesting topics were submitted during our call for speakers, and we’ll be having two tracks this year: a Developer & Business Track, and a User & Education Track. The former will comprise talks with more technical topics, while the latter will include talks that are more relevant for the non-technical audience.

It’s gonna be exciting! Grab your tickets now!

See you at the WordCamp!

Say hello to our second round of speakers!

WordCamp Singapore 2016 is really excited to feature our second round of speakers!

WordCamp Singapore Speakers 2

Jack Lenox

Jack Lenox, from Keswick, United Kingdom, works on the WordPress.com VIP team at Automattic.

He will be sharing about the key principles within PHP that drive both the development of WordPress core and many widely-used and well-regarded plugins.

Takayuki Miyoshi

Takayuki Miyoshi is a WordPress plugin developer from Fukuoka, Japan, best known for Contact Form 7. His other plugins include Really Simple CAPTCHA, Flamingo, and Bogo.

He will be speaking about the responsibilities of plugin developers, and what developers should keep in mind.

Peter Wilson

Peter Wilson, from Melbourne, Australia, is a WordPress engineer at Human Made, a top-tier global WordPress agency, and is also a guest committer to WordPress core.

He will be sharing on how to contribute to WordPress Core, from using a bug tracker to contributing patches.

Shilpa Shah

Shilpa Shah, from Pune, India, is a co-founder of Hummingbird Web Solutions, which develops and sells themes and plugins.

She will be sharing about how she would promote themes and plugins, and her successes and failures thus far.

Kenneth Lee

Kenneth Lee, from Singapore, writes at 5meanders.com, Daily Vanity and Avenue One Magazine. He specialises in creating provocative content.

He will be sharing his content creation techniques and processes behind the creation of blog posts that touch on controversial social issues, and how to avoid backlash from the public and policy makers.

Joan WeeFelipe Garcia

Joan Wee and Felipe Garcia work at Singapore’s very own Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Joan is a senior librarian at NTU Libraries, while Felipe is an assistant professor with the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

They will share their experience using WordPress to support an undergraduate class in their university.

Terence Lee

Terence Lee, from Singapore, has been a WordPress user for 8 years, and is presently the managing editor of the popular tech and startups publication Tech in Asia, which gets 1.4 million page views every month.

He will be sharing about Tech in Asia’s editorial workflow, and about how WordPress can keep up with the evolving media landscape.

Tony Bui

Tony Bui, from Hanoi, Vietnam, is a co-founder at WooRockets, a provider of plugins and themes for the popular WooCommerce framework.

He will be speaking on how one can understanding the behavior of their users using Google Tag Manager, and some lessons that he learnt the hard way.

Check out the Speakers page to learn more about these speakers and more! If you haven’t bought your tickets, please make sure to do so by Sunday, 14 August 2016 (get your tickets here!) to guarantee a T-shirt in your size.

Introducing our first round of speakers!

We’ve had a lot of great talks proposed for the first WordCamp to be held in Singapore in five years, and we’re excited to announce our first round of speakers.

WordCamp Singapore Speakers 1

Noel Tock

Noel Tock will be delivering one of our keynotes. Hailing from Zurich, Switzerland, he’s a partner at Human Made, one of the top-tier global WordPress agencies (and partner of the WordPress.com VIP Programme).

He’ll be speaking about how to succeed in working with WordPress, and getting involved with the WordPress community.

Roxanne Chia

Roxanne Chia is a Singapore-based beauty blogger, ex-lecturer, and educator.

She will be speaking about how being an educator changed the way she blogs about beauty.

Dat Hoang

Dat Hoang, from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, helps with WPML, the WordPress Multilingual Plugin.

He will be speaking about how WPML organises their customer support policies, earning the love and loyalty of their customers.

Hedren Sum

Hedren Sum is a librarian at Singapore’s very own Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Libraries.

He will be sharing on how he used WordPress to create a digital research archive that helps to engage different interest groups on intangible heritage, which covers languages, festivals, cuisines and traditional craftsmanship.

Mahangu Weerasinghe

Mahangu Weerasinghe, from Colombo, Sri Lanka, has been using WordPress since version 0.70. He works at Automattic as a Happiness Engineer.

He will be speaking about how WordPress is hackable by design, and show, with examples, how easy it is for non-developers to break into WordPress coding.

Shinichi Nishikawa

Shinichi Nishikawa, who currently lives in Ogijima, Japan, not only works with big clients from all around the world, but also contributes to the WordPress project in various ways.

He will speak about how high traffic blogs, media websites, and e-commerce shops offload their services from WordPress to platform providers such as Google and Amazon Web Services.

Dandreb John Bitanghol

Dandreb John Bitanghol (also known as Dreb Bits), from Davao, Philippines, is a web engineer at 10up, where he focuses on building and supporting WordPress.com VIP sites.

He will be speaking about the advantages of using and adding hooks, and how using them helps with large codebases.

Rahul Bansal

Rahul Bansal, from Pune, India, started India’s first WordPress-only agency, rtCamp, in 2009, and he has been involved in open-source WordPress projects such as rtMedia and EasyEngine.

He will be sharing a story about how rtCamp used innovative methods to hire passionate people, some challenges they’ve faced, and how they have nurtured a culture of giving back to open source.

Visit the Speakers page to learn more about each of them. If you haven’t bought your tickets, please make sure to do so by Sunday, 14 August 2016 (get your tickets here!) to guarantee a T-shirt in your size.

Meet SingaPuu!

A WordCamp is not fun without a Wapuu. Therefore we are very excited to introduce our very own Wapuu “SingaPuu” to represent WordCamp Singapore 2016!

SingaPuu-#2

What’s a Wapuu, you ask? Wapuu is essentially the unofficial mascot of WordCamp. The idea was first mentioned in 2009 at the WordCamp Tokyo after-party, where Matt asked Japanese users for ideas to promote WordPress in Japan, and one of the suggestions is to create a mascot. One things lead to another and finally Wapuu was born! (Here’s the complete story for those who want to know more) Ever since then, almost every WordCamp had their own Wapuu.

The name SingaPuu is a portmanteau of Singapore and Wapuu. “Singa” means “Lion” in Malay language. Singapore (or Singapura in Malay) essentially means “Lion City”, which is why SingaPuu is dressed in a Lion costume!

SingaPuu will be roarin’ in WordCamp Singapore on 6th September, 2016 at One Marina Boulevard. Grab your tickets here!

Call for Speakers Extended!

Note: Our Call for Speakers is now closed. If you have any questions about WordCamp Singapore, please email us or tweet us at @WordCampSG.

Our Call for Speakers has been open for a month! We’ve seen some great submissions so far, but found that there are still plenty of people who haven’t heard that WordCamp Singapore is happening. We don’t want to miss out on any potentially great talks, so we’ve decided to extend the submission deadline to Monday, 18 July 2016, at 11:59pm Singapore time!

Once again: you don’t need to have lots of public speaking experience. All that we ask is that you be able to present your chosen topic passionately and respectfully.

We’re also looking to put together a show-and-tell segment, where you can tell a short story of how your WordPress website evolved over time. This will be great for anyone looking to gain some speaking experience.

If you’re unsure of a topic, we’ll be happy to talk about it with you.

We’ve already begun shortlisting our speakers, and will be announcing some of them soon!

If you feel like there’s a blogger whose story you would like to hear about, or have a friend who you think would be a great speaker for WordCamp, do share the Call for Speakers link with them.

Call for Speakers Open!

Note: Our Call for Speakers is now closed. If you have any questions about WordCamp Singapore, please email us or tweet us at @WordCampSG.

Do you have a lesson, idea, or story you wish to share with the WordPress community? You should apply to speak.

You don’t need to have lots of public speaking experience. All that we ask is that you be able to present your chosen topic passionately and respectfully (there are a few other guidelines outlined on the speaker application).

If you’re unsure of a topic, we’ll be happy to talk about it with you.

All our sessions will be conducted in English.

We’ll close speaker applications on Sunday, 17 July 2016, at 11:59pm Singapore time Wednesday, 6 July 2016, at 11:59pm. Please submit your talk proposals by then!

Call for Sponsors Open!

Sponsoring WordCamp is a great opportunity to extend your presence among our attendees, which include designers, developers, bloggers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and educators from throughout Singapore and across the region.

If you or your business have benefited from using WordPress, now is the perfect time to give something back.

Your sponsorship will help reduce the ticket costs for attendees (meaning more people will likely come) and allow us to provide a substantially higher quality event than we could with ticket sales. It will also give you an opportunity to engage with our attendees during the event.

If you or your organisation is interested in sponsoring WordCamp Singapore, please read the Call For Sponsors page and fill up our application form.

With your support, we will be able to put together an awesome WordCamp!

Welcome to WordCamp Singapore!

We’re happy to announce that WordCamp Singapore is officially on the calendar!

WordCamp Singapore will be on Tuesday, 6 September 2016 at Microsoft Singapore, Level 21, One Marina Boulevard, Singapore 018989.

Early bird tickets are available now for the low price of $30. Normal tickets will be available for $40 from 8 July 2016.

In the meantime, do follow us on Twitter, or subscribe using the form in the sidebar to stay up to date on the most recent news. We’ll be keeping you posted on all the details over the coming months!

WordCamp Singapore 2016 is over. Check out the next edition!