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WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe 2026 in Kraków marked a significant milestone for WordPress Educational Initiatives. For the first time ever, WCEUWCEUWordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. featured a dedicated Education Table at the Contributor DayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ and Education Track, bringing together students, mentorsEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., educators, and institutional partners to explore what it truly means to learn, teach, and contribute through WordPress.
But this wasn’t just about building websites.
A New Kind of Learning
The long-term health of the project depends on something less visible than market share: a steady, growing community of contributors who understand open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL., care about its values, and have the skills to move it forward. That’s what WordPress educational initiatives are really about, and the direction of WordPress education has evolved to. Today, students aren’t just learning how to install a theme or configure a pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.. They are developing critical thinking, collaborative skills, and real-world project experience using open source tools. They are discovering how to contribute back to a global community. They are learning what it means to be part of something bigger than a grade.
Growing the next generation of contributors isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s essential to the sustainable future of WordPress as an open source project. The WordPress Credits Program, Campus Connect, and other education programs exist to create that pipeline, connecting universities, educators, and students directly with the contributor community, often for the first time. WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków was a significant milestone for these initiatives. Taking place in a city where we’ve been building genuine, long-term partnerships with universities and technical schools.
Student Showcase: Real Projects, Real Skills
One of the highlights of the Education Track was the Student Showcase, featuring work from students at Kraków University of Technology, Kraków University of Economics, and VIII LO high school. These weren’t toy projects. Students presented work developed over a full semester, demonstrating how they incorporated WordPress into advanced, professional-grade workflows.
The standout project was WapuuGo — a gamified WordPress learning platform designed for children aged 10 to 14. Students create blogs, share their work with peers, earn badges, and unlock custom Wapuu characters as they progress through the curriculum. The platform includes dedicated areas for teachers and parents, and it’s built entirely on WordPress. It’s a creative, thoughtful project that demonstrates just how versatile the platform can be when students approach it as a tool for solving real problems rather than just a CMS to learn.
What made it stand out was the approach: students weren’t just told to “make a website.” They were challenged to use WordPress as a tool to solve real problems, build creative projects, and reflect on how open source technology integrates into modern work, bring ideas to life, and create things with purpose.
Big shoutout to @tadamarketing, Joanna Micek, and @twloczkowski, who were the project leads for the student groups.
What It Really Means to Be Part of the WP Credits Program
The WordPress Credits Program is often misunderstood as purely technical or contributor-focused. In reality, it is a bridge between business, education, and open source community values.
@organvlasti, a WordPress Credits mentorEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., took to the stage to break down what participation in the program actually looks like from a business and mentorship perspective. She shared how companies can support educational initiatives in a meaningful way, and featured a student whose path was shaped by that collaboration.
This talk is a must-watch for anyone considering institutional or business involvement in WordPress education.
A highlight from our university partnerships
A reflection of how deeply we collaborate with local educational institutions came in the form of a talk by @dannykrk of Kraków University of Technology. In “The New Engineer: Psychology, Systems, and Open Source,” Daniel explored how the role of the engineer is evolving, and the place open source communities play in shaping that. It’s a thought-provoking contribution from a partner who has become a real part of this community.
A recognition from Kraków University of Technology
One of the most meaningful moments of WCEU 2026 happened on the main stage at the beginning of Fireside Chat & Q&A. Kraków University of Technology presented a formal institutional recognition to @matt, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, in acknowledgment of his contributions to open source, education, and the open web. The award was presented by Natalia Ryłko on behalf of the university, and accepted by @4thhubbard in Matt’s name.
The letter from Rector Professor Andrzej Szarata expressed the university’s alignment with the values WordPress has long stood for: that knowledge should be shared, that technology should serve society, and that a university’s responsibility extends beyond its own walls. It also acknowledged the collaboration already underway between Kraków University of Technology, the WordPress FoundationWordPress FoundationThe WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org., and the broader WordPress community, pointing to student projects presented at WCEU as a tangible result of that partnership.
It’s a moment that speaks to something larger. When a major technical university formally recognizes the impact of an open source project and its educational initiatives, it signals that this work is being taken seriously at an institutional level. That kind of validation opens doors, and we look forward to building on it.
The event started strong on July 4th, 2026 at the WCEU Contributor Day, where the Education Table brought together one of the most engaged and diverse groups of the day.
It opened with introductions and a simple but powerful framing: What’s your background? What’s your campus or education experience? From there, the group moved into open brainstorming and discussion, and contributions came from two perspectives: students and mentors on one side, and institution representatives on the other.
What Students and Mentors Brought Up
The student and mentor group generated rich feedback and ideas, including:
Creating a new fellowship model for mentors, enabling them to prototype and design solutions for their own institutions (new programs, communication campaigns, internal platforms)
Adding a Human-Centered Design (HCD) module to the course to foster creative and solutions-oriented thinking
Building a contribution wizard tool directly into the course to help students navigate where they can get involved
Creating a contribution or project dashboard so students can clearly see open tasks and needs
Addressing the confusion between WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ and WordPress.comWordPress.comAn online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ in the course curriculum, which currently leads to disorientation
Dividing the course into technical and non-technical tracks to better serve different audiences
Improving language clarity throughout course materials and documentation
Institution reps came with strategic and structural thinking:
Developing an elevator pitch presentation specifically designed to help universities understand and join the program
Defining clear next steps for students after graduation, including the concept of a WPCredits Alumni Club
Framing contributions as a genuine career path, not just a classroom exercise
Making the course available in multiple languages
Encouraging participating institutions to collaborate with each other, rather than working in silos
Creating a mini-grant program, co-funded with institutions, to sponsor student projects
Introducing modern, relevant tools to the curriculum (for example, exploring an education partnership with Figma)
Developing audience-specific courses and certifications: WordPress for Business Owners, for Designers, for Project Managers, and so on
A Broader Request
One idea that surfaced from multiple directions: move Education to the WordPress.org main menu. It’s a small change with a big symbolic and practical impact, signaling that education is a first-class part of the WordPress ecosystem.
Also running on Contributor Day was Akademia WordPressa, a beginner-focused workshop initiative organized by the local Polish WordPress community. For the first time in WCEU history, the event included dedicated hands-on workshops for people who had never used WordPress before.
The concept originated at WordCamp Kraków 2024 and made its WCEU debut this year, with a four-hour curriculum running entirely in Polish and aimed at the local community. Participants built their first website from scratch using WordPress Playground, learned to work with the blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor, explored how AI tools can assist in content creation and site planning, and then found and fixed intentional accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) and SEO errors in their own sites as a practical learning exercise. No coding required, no prior experience needed.
The session accommodated 40 participants, and all materials including the agenda, site project, exercise list, and facilitator notes are being published after the event so future organizers can freely adapt, translate, and reuse them.
This is exactly the spirit the Education initiatives are trying to scale. A community-led, low-barrier entry point into WordPress and open source, built by people who care about bringing new voices into the ecosystem. A dedicated post about the Akademia is coming soon, with a deeper look at the format, how it ran, and how other communities can pick it up and run it at their own events.
The hope is that Akademia WordPressa grows into a fixture at flagship WordPress events worldwide.
Sponsoring Students Is Investing in the Future of WordPress
Five students from the WordPress Credits Program attended WCEU 2026 in Kraków, representing Latvia, Italy, and Spain. Their participation was made possible by company sponsorships specifically dedicated to bringing WordPress Credits students to the event.
During the conference, those students had the chance to meet in person with the companies that sponsored their trips. That kind of connection matters. Students see firsthand what it looks like when a business genuinely invests in open source education. Companies meet the people their support made it possible for to be there.
What’s just as important: these students weren’t passive attendees. They volunteered at the event and attended the Contributor Day, contributing alongside the broader community. They came as sponsored participants and left as contributors.
This is worth naming as an open opportunity. Sponsoring a WordPress Credits student’s travel to a flagship event like WCEU is a concrete, meaningful way for a company to invest in WordPress education. It creates a direct connection between a business and a student at a formative moment, and it contributes to the contributor pipeline that the project depends on.
Looking Ahead
WCEU 2026 in Kraków was proof that WordPress education is growing up. The first-ever Education Track, a packed Contributor Day Table, and new institutional partnerships forming all point to a community that is taking education seriously.
The next step is to follow up with the mentors, institutional representatives, and supporters who contributed ideas during the Contributor Day Education Table. The session generated a rich list of proposals, from fellowship models and contribution dashboards to multilingual course materials and alumni pathways. Those conversations don’t stop when the event ends. I’ll be working through the ideas raised, engaging the people who raised them, and turning the most actionable ones into concrete next steps for the program.
The work continues. If you are a WordCamp organizer, university, educator, mentor, or student interested in getting involved with WordPress Educational Initiatives, WordPress Credits or Campus Connect, reach out. There is a place for you here.
