Ines will explain how DonateWC was born and how the foundation aims to diversify the speaker pool for WordCamps. She will tell her personal story of being a single mom, starting out in the WordPress world without a penny to her name, the effort it took to save up and attend the Community Summit, and changing her life. DonateWC will bring more voices to the WordPress community by levelling the financial playing field, and this benefits us all in the long run.
Category: Community
From WordPress to blockchain: The future is 100% open source
What if businesses, planet earth, and the galaxy operated with the friendliness and openness of the WordPress community? We conquered the CMS market, why not take over everything else? In this 30-minute talk and Q&A, Sebastiaan will take you on a journey to a 100% open-source world! How open source and, specifically, the WordPress community can protect against the misuse of data, unfair distribution of wealth, and censorship from closed-source monopolies such as Facebook, Uber, and AirBnB. Also included is a sneak peak at a WordPress agency and WordPress freelancer in 2030. Spoiler: It will be cool, fair, and inclusive.
Democratising education
It is no surprise that WordPress is used in various ways in schools and universities worldwide, but current trends and data show that proprietary and closed learning management systems reign supreme. Ronnie will explain why data ownership and portability is so critical, what plugin developers and site owners should be aware of, and how WordPress could and should play an integral role in the future of education.
Why I walked more than 700km to Berlin, and survived
Marcel walked more than 700 kilometers to get to WordCamp Europe to raise funds for a good cause in the WordPress community. He will tell you about his preparation, the journey itself, people he met, and how he managed to step away from his company for a month to do it.
The power of free
In the last 20 years, using free or open-source software has transformed from being nerdy to being evil to being trendy, and finally to being the norm. What led to this change? Have we lost the values of free and open-source software along the way?