Category: WordCamps

After organizing one more edition of WordCamp Pune, I thought it would be worth writing down how the event has changed over the years. We have tried many things along the way, and since the very beginning, we have hosted seven WordCamps in Pune.

2013 — Where It All Began

The first WordCamp in Pune was held on the 23rd and 24th of February, 2013. I organized it with the support of the WPoets team, who helped with both planning and running the event. This was back when the WordPress community in India was still in its early days. We made it a two-day event. Day one was all about developers, with every talk aimed at them. Day two was for WordPress users.

2015 — The Community Takes the Lead

The next WordCamp came after a gap of one year, in 2015. This was the first one organized by the Pune WordPress community itself, with Saurabh Shukla as the lead organizer. It was a one-day event, but we tried something new — parallel tracks. We had a main hall for talks and smaller rooms for workshops and lightning talks.

This was also the WordCamp where we said no to plastic water bottles. Instead, we gave every attendee a steel water bottle. We also hosted a networking dinner the night before and an after-party to wrap things up.

2017 — Wapsara Makes Her Debut

After another gap of one year, the next WordCamp Pune took place in 2017 at Wadia College. Saurabh led this one again. It was a two-day event — day one had beginner workshops, and day two was the main conference.

This edition holds a special place for us because it was where we introduced Wapsara, our official mascot and the first female Wapuu from India.

To help more people take the stage, we also held a workshop before the event for those who wanted to speak but were unsure about their public speaking skills.

2019 — A Fresh Team Steps In

Staying true to what was now starting to feel like a Puneri tradition, we took another one-year gap. The next WordCamp was held in 2019 at IISER Pune. Sheeba Abraham led the organizing team, and this was the first time I was not part of it.

I made full use of my free time. With no duties to worry about, I spent the day talking to various entrepreneurs who run WordPress businesses in India.

2024 — The Big Comeback (With a Bold New Format)

Then COVID hit, and there were no WordCamps in Pune for several years. We started planning one for 2023, but Puneri inertia got the better of us. By the time we pulled things together, we knew 2023 was not going to happen. So we pushed the event to February 2024.

Aditya Kane led this edition, and he brought some bold changes and a new venue. We hosted a WordCamp with no speakers. Yes, you read that right. Instead, we ran six outcome-focused workshops on the conference day, each supported by four to five facilitators. This format worked really well. Attendees loved it because it allowed real, two-way conversations between facilitators and participants. The venue was the MCCIA Trade Tower.

This was a first-of-its-kind format for any WordCamp in India.

2025 — Breaking the Pattern

For the first time, we broke the tradition of skipping a year and held the very next WordCamp in 2025. Aditya Kane continued as lead organizer, and we kept the workshop format. But we added something new — a two-hour Unconference, which I managed. We also brought back the mixer event.

2026 — A New Tradition Takes Root

And then, to everyone’s surprise, we did it again in 2026. Some might say a new tradition is being born in the Pune WordPress community. This time, Aditya Jaju took the lead. We replaced the Unconference with an Open Mic format, where speaker applications were invited and reviewed. Shruti managed the Open Mic sessions.

Looking Ahead

I am quite sure we will keep this new streak alive and host another WordCamp in Pune in 2027. The Pune WordPress community has come a long way and the best is yet to come.

 

 

 

 

 

Last week, I co-organized WordCamp Pune 2026 with an awesome team. WordCamp Pune has come a long way since its first edition back in 2013.

I had a lot of conversations sharing my experiences in freelancing workshops and career counseling sessions. But one conversation stood out.

It started with Tripad, and Deepak joined in later. They showed me how they’re using Gemini and Antigravity to build frontends.

Tripad walked me through his approach, and it was eye-opening. Vibe coding sounds easy, but getting good results takes lot’s of effort. Tripad’s trick was to start with a screenshot, share it with the AI and let it help you craft the right prompts. From there, it’s a loop of experimenting with prompts and tweaking outputs until things look the way you want. Simple idea, but it clicked for me.

Then Deepak took things to another level. He demoed how he used Stitch by Google to design the interface for his personal mobile app, and then vibe coded the whole thing using AI. That was something else.

Honestly, all the effort I put into organizing this WordCamp? That 40-minute conversation with Tripad and Deepak made it all worth it.

 

When I look back at WordCamp Kolhapur, one thing that really stands out is a conversation I had with Deepak Gupta at the pre-event networking dinner.

At dinner, Deepak Gupta mentioned the new WordPress “Abilities API.” He was explaining how MCP adapter developers can now use AI tools like Claude Code to build things for WordPress. I saw a massive opportunity for Awesome Enterprise framework.

By adding an MCP adapter, we can let AI agents write code directly into the platform. This kills the “copy-paste” shuffle between chat windows and the editor.

This is why I keep going to WordCamps. A random conversation over dinner can spark ideas you never saw coming.

 

Last week I took a road trip to Kolhapur for WordCamp Kolhapur 2.0 – here’s how it went down

Day 1: The Road Trip

Sharvin, Yash, and I picked up Anand and Gajendra straight from the airport and hit the road to Kolhapur. Six hours of driving lay ahead, and I was bracing myself for Pune’s notorious traffic. But luck was on our side – we sailed through without any major slowdowns.

The entire drive turned into one long conversation about WordCamp Asia – swapping stories from previous years and getting hyped about what’s coming. Can’t spill all those details here, but I will say this: I’m already counting down to WordCamp Rajasthan in September 2026.

We stopped for tea once, then again in Karad for dinner. That’s where we recorded our answers to Sharvin’s question: “What should first-timers expect at WordCamp?” You can catch those videos on the WPoets TV channel.

Sharvin dropped us at the hotel around 11:30 PM. Before heading to our rooms, we made plans to meet at 6:30 AM the next morning for darshan at the Shree Ambabai  temple. Yeah, I know – ambitious.

Day 2: Temple Runs and WordPress Talks

Me and Yash were downstairs at 6:30 AM, ready to go. Anand… took his time. We finally left at 6:45. A quick auto ride got us to Ambabai temple, and here’s where our luck kicked in again – the morning queue was surprisingly short. We finished darshan by 7:40 AM.

Someone warned us that the famous Misal runs out by 10 AM on weekends, so we went straight for breakfast. The Misal was worth the rush, and we followed it up with a glass of Solkadhi – perfectly refreshing after that spicy kick.

Back at the hotel, we waited for Lokesh to join us before heading to DYPSEM, the WordCamp venue where the student workshops were happening. We spent a solid hour with Prof (Dr)Ajit Patil discussing the WordPress Credits program and Student Club initiative. During the break, we grabbed vadapav and sandwiches, squeezed in a photo op, then headed out for lunch.

Lunch was at Dehati – a proper thali with the famous tambda and pandhra rassa. It was massive. Properly stuffed, we dragged ourselves to the New Palace Museum for what turned out to be a fascinating history walk. Learned about the Satara Gadi and Karveer Gadi – definitely worth the food coma.

Post-museum, we went shopping for Kolhapuri chappals (when in Rome…), then wrapped up the day with the pre-event networking dinner.

Day 3: WordCamp Day

Conference day! I was the 152nd person to pick up my badge. They guided us to breakfast where I had poha and halwa – weird combo, honestly, but I went with it.

Makrand kicked things off with opening remarks in the networking area, welcomed everyone, and walked us through the day’s schedule. Then people scattered to the talks, and I… went rogue. Started my own hallway track, chatting with organizers, volunteers, and sponsors.

I meant to catch 2-3 sessions. I really did. But I completely lost track of time talking to people, and before I knew it, it was lunch. After eating, I prepped for the “WordPress in the AI Era” panel I was moderating. The panel went well, followed by closing remarks where we invited everyone to WordCamp Pune and WordCamp Asia.

The after-party was a blast. We finally called it a night, but with interesting plans brewing for the next day.

Day 4: Birds, Temples, and Barfi

6:20 AM. Downstairs. Again. (I’m sensing a pattern here.)

Suhas and Markand picked me, Lokesh and Yash up for a trip to Tabak Udyan in Panhala Fort for some early morning birdwatching. While everyone else was spotting birds, I went full photographer mode on the flowers and clicked a bunch of photos. Around 9, we decided to visit Jyotiba temple. Post-darshan, we stopped on the way back to grab some incredible barfi.

Hotel checkout, one final Misal lunch (because you can never have too much Misal), and we hit the road back to Pune. This time the conversation topic was games. We made quick stops for kandi peda and later for chai and vada pav – the essential road trip fuel.

P.S. WordCamp Pune 2026 is happening on 8th February, join us.

 

If you have been to typical conferences, you know the drill: aggressive networking and a relentless focus on ROI. The atmosphere is often defined by the question, “What can I get from you?”

WordCamps disrupt this model by changing the question to, “How can we connect?”

The unique value of the WordPress community at a WordCamp is that attendees prioritise personal relations over immediate sales. This might seem counterintuitive for a business event, but it is actually a better long-term strategy.

When you spend your time selling, you get a customer for a day. When you spend your time bonding and helping, you build a distinct mental availability. When a project lands on someone’s desk six months or even a year from now, they won’t turn to the person who handed them a flyer. They will turn to the person they shared a coffee and a conversation with. You know, business happens, but it happens as a byproduct of trust, not as the primary goal.

In the WordCamp ecosystem, your net worth really is your network—because that network is built on friendship and shared interest, not just potential leads.

P.S. If you want to verify this claim for yourself and meet the wider WordPress community, then join me at WordCamp Asia 2026, which is happening in Mumbai on 9^th,10^th and 11^th April 2026.

Over the years, I’ve organized PHPCamp and many WordCamps in Pune. So, when I got to be part of the WordCamp Asia organizing team, I took it casually. I thought, “After organizing so many events, how different could this be?”

Well, I was in for a surprise. During the first town hall meeting, I realized that a team of almost 70+ organizers (that’s the size of an average WordPress company!) would be working together to organize this event. And most of us hadn’t even visited the host city yet.

This was my first time organizing an event remotely, and this post is about what I learned from the experience.

Learning #1: Town Halls and Accountability

The first thing I copied and adapted for WPoets was how the town halls were run and the template used. It was the best way to keep teams responsible and accountable.

Learning #2: Recording Meetings and Taking Notes

Next, I saw how important it was to record all meetings and use tools like Fathom to capture notes. I introduced tl;dv for recording and note-taking in WPoets, and now it’s a key part of all our internal and external meetings.

Learning #3: Communicating in Channels, Not DMs

Since this was my first time working in a fully remote team, I realized how important it is to communicate in channels instead of DMs. At WPoets, we’ve been using Microsoft Teams for a while, but most conversations happened in DMs. Now, we’ve slowly moved most project-related communication to channels.

Learning #4: Empowering Teams and Stepping In When Needed

Another big learning was how the leads empowered teams and stepped in only when needed to keep things on track. This is something I’m trying to bring into my own work.

Learning #5: Documenting Processes for Future Teams

I also admired the focus on documenting processes for future teams. I haven’t fully adapted this at WPoets yet, but I’m working on some ideas to roll it out soon.

Learning #6: Retrospective Meetings Done Right

Lastly, I loved how the retrospective meeting was conducted and the Starfish Retrospective Framework template used. I plan to use this directly at WPoets for team retrospectives after every project release.

These were the major learnings, but I also had some personal takeaways from working with my program team members.

Want to Be Part of WordCamp Asia 2026?

If you’re interested in becoming an organizer for WordCamp Asia 2026, the application form is still open clsoed.

 

Last weekend we saw first WordCamp in Nagpur, it is beginning of many of the WordCamps coming up this year in India.

I was one of the speaker at WordCamp Nagpur and talked about alternate development techniques on WordPress, ie how you can do lot of common things without writing code.

2nd session started by @thecancerus Job isn't just to write a code @wcnagpur #WCNagpur pic.twitter.com/QLZFIDj9uc

— Vishal Mukadam (@vishalmukadam) June 25, 2017

I liked how WordCamp Nagpur had planned it’s event, with day one about workshops with three parallel tracks and special emphasis on community & contribution, while day two about talks with clear focus on users and developers.

I specifically learned three new things during the event

1. Using wp-cli to take database backups and import, during Ajit Bohra’s Workshop.
2. Using Composer for managing WordPress projects in git during Rahul’s talk.
3. Using WordPress REST API during Tushar’s talk.

This was also the WordCamp where I went full selfie mode

Being in Nagpur meant eating Saoji, and on both days we went out for lunch to try a new Saoji restaurant, though sweets I will try next time

It was two days full of fun and learning, and I would like to thank all the organizers of WordCamp Nagpur for all the hard-work they did to host such an awesome event.

Last month we finally witnessed the first ever WordCamp in South India organised by Bigul M and Hari Shanker and rest of the members of Kochi WordPress meetup group.

 

I can say that they managed to match the expectations set by WordCamp Udaipur, and three cheers for all the organisers and volunteers for making it happen.

This was first WordCamp where almost everyone stayed till the end of the day, generally, most of the attendees start leaving by tea break or about 3.30 PM. At WordCamp Kochi, I was both a Volunteer and Speaker. I volunteered at happiness bar along with Gagandeep and talked about building MVP with WordPress.

I talked about why to build MVP with WordPress, and how to do so without writing single line of PHP code, I gave example of ask.careers, one of the WPoets continuous improvement program customer, who had come to us for building a mobile app and  how they built their MVP with WordPress and validated their idea even before releasing and the mobile app to play store.

Here are slides from my talk at WordCamp Kochi.

https://www.slideshare.net/teamphp/building-minimal-viable-product-mvp-with-wordpress

 

I attended few sessions of which three sessions stand out for me. First one by Vivek Jain, he talked about handling clients the human way,  a summary of his talk can be seen on below tweeter thread. The highlight of his talk was LED ( Lead, Empathise and Document) way.

.@svivekjain is talking about handling client in human way.. pic.twitter.com/T36kYRvw1I

— WPoets (@wpoets) February 19, 2017

Next one was by Mahangu he talked about support first, I had missed this talk at Kathmandu WordCamp last year. One of the main takeaway from his talk was that we should cost and charge for support, as customer service gives an edge to companies. His talk was filled with gems if you provide support.

Finally, the talk by Daphnée was also an eye opener for me. She shared her experience as a remote worker, and my takeaway was the role of documentation and right internal communication tools in enabling remote work. This was later augmented by the LED way suggestion by Vivek.

I also received the gift from Bluehost for winning their selfie contest in Udaipur

I stayed a day extra, had a great time with my friends Premanshu and Abhishek and roamed the Kochi city, we managed to catch an Elephant bathing in the river. Nithin was our guide for the first day and Abhilash arranged for a driver on the second day.

 

We also tried a large variety of Keralite food

I am looking forward to next edition of WordCamp Kochi, which I will definitely attend with family.

I attend my last WordCamp of 2016 at Kathmandu, where I had an opportunity to talk about my pet topic of being able to assemble a website/ web application the way we could assemble a desktop application. Here is the video of that talk and I am open to your suggestions about how to make it the default way for building websites.

 

Here are few things that I personally liked about WordCamp Kathmandu, that we can emulate here in India

1. Start On Time:  To ensure that they start on time, they had opened the collection of tickets and swags a day before for attendees, this ensured that on the day of event, instead of waiting in the line they were ready for talks.
2. All day Swag Counter: They allowed attendees to collect their swag through out the day, so attendees were able to collect their swag without queuing and most importantly they could spend time attending and networking.
3. Multitrack & breaks: They had timed the breaks between the talks for allowing people switch between the talk and tracks.
4. One Big Family: This is another thing that liked about the community, almost every one knew every one. That 200+ people we are talking about. WordCamp Kathmandu was almost like one big happy family reunion.
5. Plan for Next WordCamp: Even before this years WordCamp was over they had already planned for next years WordCamp and responsibility distributed.

All in all this was the first WordCamp that I have attended that started on time, was running fully on autopilot, every member of team knew whats needs to be done and was doing it. Being one of the organizers of upcoming WordCamp Pune, I had lot to learn, and hope to apply them to ensure we have smoothest running WordCamp in Pune.

Kudos to all the organizers and volunteers for WC Kathmandu

I also want to specifically thank my friends Biplab and Roshan for showing me Kathmandu.