WordCamp Davao 2019 took place on July 6th, and all of the Philippine WordCamp leaders went all out to attend and help make the first-ever WordCamp Davao successful. It was awesome, partly because of the promise of pomelo. We all love pomelo. It’s delicious!
The first time I was in Davao, I only stayed for a few hours; and that was a decade ago. So, I was excited to get to know the city and to meet the WordPress Davao community. It was also my first time to be a plenary speaker. I’ve always done workshops with no more than 50 people in attendance. Talking in front of a large audience is a bit out of my comfort zone, but I think I did pretty great.
My talk was about “The Importance of Giving Back to the WordPress Community.” This topic is so close to my heart because the WordPress Community has given so much to me. I started off my talk with a quote from Lady Gaga:
I think tolerance and acceptance and love is something that feeds every community.
I love this quote because I firmly believe that without these components, a community will rarely succeed. When you choose to be a member of a community, you choose to TOLERATE. You choose to ACCEPT. You choose to LOVE. Sometimes, you choose these things even if you don’t have to, even if you don’t want to, but because you love, tolerate, and accept, you do it.
I’ve also been asked a lot why I give tons of time to the community when I can spend that time with my family or work and get paid and I only have one answer to that: without WordPress, I wouldn’t be here.
I think this is true for a lot of people in the WordPress community. We care for our people. We may have different opinions but we try to tolerate and talk things through. We accept our differences, and work with it. All of us love WordPress, and it shows. And such is the magic of community.
Before my talk, I manned the Happiness Bar together with two fantastic guys—Andrew Garcia, lead organizer of WordPress do_action Manila 2019 and Takayuki Miyoshi, creator of Contact Form 7. All in all, it was a great start for WordCamp Davao. The organizers did a really awesome job. I’m pretty sure all 250+ attendees had a great time, as well.
And then came the pomelo… I just couldn’t leave Davao without taking home at least a couple boxes of pomelo. Of course, I had to say hi to Pag-asa–the first Philippine eagle to be bred and hatched in captivity (even though I had to go through thickets to see him).
The Davao WordPress Community is thriving and next year’s WordCamp Davao is going to be bigger and better. If ever you are in town next year, don’t forget to say hello.
And because I love the WordPress community so much, not only am I the lead organizer for WordCamp Iloilo, happening on August 24-25, but I will also be the instructor for our first ever Workshop for Kids on August 23rd. I will be teaching 15 children (ages 9-14) how to set up and manage their own WordPress.com websites. So if you need good company, delicious food, and a taste of the beach, do come visit Iloilo City, Philippines for WordCamp Iloilo 2019. I’m 100% sure you’ll have a great time.
See the entire WordCamp schedule for all upcoming events at Central.WordCamp.org. To find out which WordCamp events you can find WebDevStudios, visit our WDS Gives Back page and scroll down to “In a Town Near You.”