When we started planning this online version of WordCamp India about 6 months ago, the COVID-19 pandemic was raging in India. We noticed that a lot of other online events were day-long events and that seemed to be a lot of commitment for many people in terms of time and energy.
While participating in an online WordCamp from the comfort of your home might sound like fun, it can also be strange; because often we focus on trying to replicate our in-person experiences into online ones. Hence, we decided to experiment with our event format in order to make it more engaging for an online audience.
Here is the break of the activities and the dates.
- January 30 – 31 – Workshop Days
- February 6 – 7 – Contributor Days
- February 13 – 14 – Speaker Talks
Workshop Days
January 30 – 31
This will be two days of multilingual workshops. We will be releasing a call for workshop volunteers over the next day or two.
- On these days, we will stream a few basic workshops on getting familiar with WordPress and do that in hopefully 4-5 native-to-India languages.
- After the live stream, the workshop volunteers will host a discussion or Q & A session.
- We hope to be able to create several such workshops in different languages and upload them to learn.wordpress.org where they could live as recorded workshops and lesson plans that anyone can use.
Contributor Days
February 6 – 7
It will be two days of giving back to WordPress & the WordPress community. We will be releasing a call for Contributor Days Lead in the coming days.
- The first day will have an introduction on how & why to contribute to WordPress.
- After the introduction, people can join the team where they want to contribute by joining the respective meeting & Slack channel.
Speaker Session Days
February 13 – 14
These sessions will be regular speaker sessions. We already have a speaker call out for you to apply.
During these sessions we hope to have fun filled activities, along with speaker sessions talking about all things WordPress. We hope to attract and showcase some very good and well known speakers.
- These sessions would be in presentation, discussion panels and Q&A formats.
- Every session will have audience questions.
- These two days is when we will have multiple virtual rooms to network and interact with other participants.
This format spread over three weeks and a new challenge and something we hope helps people participate in their own time without too much of a commitment. It also allows organizers and volunteers to work at an easier pace instead of a hectic 2 or 3 day long slog.
This is all new and unchartered territory! But this is why its worth exploring for our community.