Latest WordCamp News

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Kid’s Workshops For WCMIA 2017: Sneak Preview

WordCamp Miami 2017 is coming up fast and we wanted to showcase one of the most special and dear to our heart aspects of the conference: the focus on the next-generation of WordCampers and digital publishers: our children.

If you are thinking about returning to WordCamp Miami or attending for the first time with youth, we would love to get them involved. Also – we would love it if you could help SPREAD THE WORD. Do you know a teacher, parent, student, etc. that might be able to spread the word… especially if attendance for children would be without cost?

Here’s our gameplan for children and young ones for WordCamp Miami 2017:

1. We are again planning two near FULL days of activities. On Saturday, we will likely be having a “code camp” where kids can learn how to publish their own blogs with WordPress… and possibly some actual coding. On Sunday, we will continue our activities with coding and STEAM/STEM activities.

2. One of our weekend sessions will be a panel of youths, focused on how they publish content on the web (with and without WordPress). We had this panel at our last WordCamp on a Sunday and it was met with great success.

Can your child participate in our kids sessions? Can your child be a part of our Youth Panel?

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Speaker Deadline Extended To December 9th!

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Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, we’ve decided to extend our speaker application to midnight on December 9th, 2016. Click here for our speaker application form, but first check out our suggestions and guidelines to make your application the best it can be!

Although we’ve extended the deadline, starting this weekend we are officially reviewing applications already accepted. If you haven’t had a chance to submit your speaker application, do so as soon as possible so that WordCamp Miami has time to send any feedback to you before time runs out.

If you know someone – especially if they are in the Florida area – that hasn’t spoken at WordCamp Miami before and you think might make a great speaker… we are also extending nominations. Click here to fill out the “reverse call to speakers” form.

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Please remember that we are looking for youths for our youth panel!

Reach out to us with any questions!

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Reverse Speaker Call – Nominate a Speaker or Topic!

Is there a particular speaker or subject topic you would like to see at WordCamp Miami 2017? Fill out the form below (or click here to see the form in a new browser tab) to let us know!

We are searching for speakers that may never have considered WordCamp Miami before. They don’t have to be experts on WordPress – just be able to talk about what they know. We want to spread the word and invite everyone to WordCamp Miami in March 24-27 so please help us spread the word!

This “reverse” call for speakers remains open until November 25th, 2016.

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Who’s Up For Another WordCamp Miami Youth Panel?

WordCamp Miami 2016 had it’s first panel exclusively of young people. We really appreciated the thoughts from the four young ladies who participated, and thanks as well to Sandy Edwards as moderator. Here’s the video:

We would love to do this again for WordCamp Miami 2017 and make this an annual part of our schedule.

We are looking for any youth who publishes on the web – using WordPress or even NOT using WordPress. The goal is to see how the newest generation is publishing on the web and how current WordPress developers and business owners can learn from these possible trends.

Do you know a young person (18 years or younger) that would like to be a part of this? Please reach to us directly or you can happily submit a speaker application noting the Kid’s Panel as the talk topic.

We believe all voices – including young ones – deserve a chance to be heard. Let’s see if we can make it happen.

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Special Invite to Drupal, Joomla, And Others

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WordCamps draw those interested in WordPress, but they also strive to be welcome places for ANY developer of any platform to learn more on open-source and web related technologies. Open source projects shouldn’t harshly separate open source developers, regardless if they use WordPress or not. Matt Mullenweg lead by example and accepted an invite to speak at the Joomla! World Conference in 2013.

Speakers

In the past couple of years WordCamp Miami has made an effort to reach out to those outside of the WordPress “bubble”. One of our first “non-WP CMS” speakers: Jason Nickerson give a talk on How Joomla and WordPress Influence Each Other. This year we would love to see speaker submissions from other non-WP communities that our attendees would appreciate and relate to.

Since WordCamps do not usually compensate speakers for travel, we would expect possible speakers to be from the South or Central Florida area, but location really is not a factor. If you’ve never been to a WordCamp before, you might have questions which we are happy to answer.

Click here to read more about speaker submissions and how to submit.

Attendees

We are extending an official invite to any dedicated Drupal and/or Joomla developers to come to WordCamp Miami and be a part of South Florida’s open source community. Not only are we making an official invite, but we have several (read: very limited quantity) of free and/or discounted tickets to any established contributors of the Drupal or Joomla project.

So if you are not a WordPress developer, but work with another open-source solution like Drupal or Joomla, please submit a speaker application. If you have questions, contact miami@wordcamp.org.

But no matter what you develop in – then we would love to have you at one of the biggest local web conferences in Miami and one of the largest WordCamps in the United States.

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Call For Sponsors!

Our call for sponsors has officially opened!

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We have been extremely fortunate to have been supported over the past years by generous sponsorships – everyone from large corporates to individuals. Sponsoring to WordCamps like Miami’s is giving back to the WordPress community. But many sponsors at WordCamp Miami go beyond than just showing up and giving funds – many take an active role in the event itself both in front and behind the scenes.

Every year we are proud to offer reasonable priced sponsorship packages for a large event like WordCamp Miami (much of this is because of our gracious hosts at Florida International University).

Please click here to view our sponsorship packages. If you are a business that can donate or offer items like materials or food, please reach out to us and we might be able to offer a discounted sponsorship package.

You can reach out to us via our contact form. Package availability is on a first come, first served basis.

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WordCamp Miami 2017 Dates Announced

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We have great news regarding our ninth WordCamp Miami – it will be held at FIU on March 24-26, 2017. We are also proud to confirm that once again Ptah Dunbar will be stepping up as our lead coordinator this year!

We have been in the early staging of planning for the past month, and we can’t wait to share with you what we’ve got planned. Some ideas, concepts, and workshops from previous years are being carried over but also several fresh new concepts as well.

If you don’t want to wait and book travel way in advance (at least in WordCamp terms) you may already begin by looking at the same hotels we recommended last year (we have some hotels on our location page).

Our call for volunteers, sponsors, and speakers will happen shortly so watch for those announcements. Here’s the best ways to keep updated:

  1. Join our public Slack channel.
  2. Join over 1000 already on our mailing list.
  3. Follow us @wordcampmiami on Twitter.

WordCamp Miami 2017 is over. Check out the next edition!