In February, we announced a new edition of the WordCamp Incubator Program 2018, with the intent to help spread WordPress to underserved areas through providing more significant organizing support for a first event. The plan is to select three cities in 2018 where there is not an active WordPress community — but where it seems like there is a lot of potential and where there are some people excited to become organizers — and to help those communities to organize their first WordCampWordCamp WordCamps 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..

We received 104 applications for this program, and we’ve winnowed down that list to 14 communities:

Tunis, Tunisia
Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Kota Bharu Kelantan, Malaysia
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Lhasa, Tibet
Nablus, Palestine
Qazvin , Iran
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Yangon, Myanmar
North Nicosia, North Cyprus
Havana, Cuba
Teresina State, Brazil
Montevideo, Uruguay

Emanuel Blagonic and Roberto Remedios will each incubate one WordCamp this year, and we’re still open to other Community DeputiesProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. open to co-lead or intensively mentorEvent Supporter Event 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. an additional community that applied for the incubator program. We’re currently in the stage of talking to applicants about their communities and what kind of time they think they can put toward organizing a small, one-day, one-track event geared toward the goal of generating interest and getting people involved in creating an ongoing local community. At the end of May, we hope to announce the three locations selected.

If there are deputiesProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. interested in stepping up to co-lead or intensively-mentor another WordCamp organizing team in a location on this list, please let me know! I think there are more than a few communities listed above that just need extra support (and possibly a better understanding of how modest and uncomplicated an event can be) to organize a WordCamp in their town. I’d love to match a few more deputies up with communities that are excited to try something new — assuming we have some mentorsEvent Supporter Event 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. with extra bandwidth. 🙂

Questions? Concerns? Feel free to share them in a comment!

#wordcamps #incubator