Category: Activities

Photography and Bingo Contest Winners!

First, our apologies for the delay in announcing the winners of the WCPune 2017 Photography and Bingo contests! 🙏

Photography Contest Winner

I would like to thank each and every attendee of WordCamp Pune 2017 who captured some of the great moments during the event.

We found a LOT of pictures on our Twitter and Facebook streams. It took us some time to get through all of them and choosing a winner was complicated!

So, without further ado, our winner is Abhishek Deshpande.

Abhishek took so many photos during the event and captured some of the best & most memorable moments. Thank you very much, Abhishek, for your efforts with the camera. You will soon receive an email with a surprise gift 😉

All the pictures captured by Abhishek can be found on his Facebook album

Bingo Winner

In order for you to get to know our generous Sponsors better, we asked you a few questions. You needed to write the answers and tweet or let us know as soon as they finished with all the questions.

Here are some of our WCPUNE Bingo tweets. Thank you all, for participating in the game.

Based on who answered all the questions promptly and correctly, we have our winners:

  1. Varun Pailwan
  2. Bharat Parsiya

Our winners will soon receive an email from us with the surprise gift 🎁

Thanks for your participation!

Our thanks goes out to each one of you who participated. Your participation helped make WCPune an exciting, energetic place to be.

See you next year! 🙂

All you need to know about WordCamp Pune 2017

WordCamp Pune is tomorrow, Sunday the 15th January 2017. This post has most of the information you need to know at a glance.

Topics:

Venue

Where is the venue?

Ness Wadia College of Commerce,
V.K. Jaog Path, 19, Bund Garden Rd, Sangamvadi, Pune, Maharashtra 411001, India

Map Link http://ow.ly/9dSS307WiS9

How do I get there?

Jehangir Hospital is a well-known landmark, down from the road of the venue. There are also three bus stops (Ruby Hall, Dhole Patil Chowk & Wadia College) around the venue.

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Any accommodation/Hotels near the venue?

This list of hotels we published earlier might be useful.

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Registration Process and Time:

The registration desk will open at 9:00 am and stay so until 11:00 am. You will require your name and email address to complete the process.

If you are planning on attending any of our Pre-WC events today, you can register there too.

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What about breakfast?

We want to make sure that your Sunday morning is as relaxed as possible. Just get to the venue, and we will provide you with steaming hot poha and chai.

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Swag

The swag counter will start at 10:00 am. It is located near the Registration desk. We will need your name and email ID to identify your pre-selected T-Shirt size.

#WCPuneSwag includes:

  1. T-Shirts – “A Day in Pune“
  2. Water Bottle (sipper) – Use through the day
  3. Wapsara Badges (Puneri Wappu)

Also, there will lots of swag from our awesome sponsors. All you need to do is visit their desks and say hi 🙂

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Sessions & Schedule

We are having 4 parallel tracks -“Users”, “Developers”, “, “Community”- in different rooms. We encourage you to jump between sessions, depending on what interests you.

All tracks will commence at 11am. 

Check out the complete schedule.

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What if I want to Network?

Sure! There are opportunities for networking at the following areas:

  1. Happiness bar – If you have any questions related to WordPress, want to discuss your ideas, etc. Our organizers and volunteers will be there to help you.
  2. An open air space – If you wanted to sit on the green grass and discuss  WordPress over a cup of tea/coffee. I am sure you will enjoy this place. 🙂
  3. Our Sponsors’ desks – Discuss with our sponsors their products, services and job openings!

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Other fun activities?

We have few activities after registration (9:00 am) and before sessions (11:00 am):

  1. Bingo with Sponsors – We will ask few questions, you answer them and win goodies!
  2. Speaker quiz – Get to know our speakers better!

#WCPune Photography Contest – Capture a photo, and use the #WCPune hashtag.

Buddy system- Find and connect with another person at WCPune. No prizes for this one, just opportunity to meet some cool new people!

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I’m hungry / Where’s the food?

We will serve Poha, Bhakarvadi (from Chitale Bandhu), Shrewsbury Biscuits (from the famous Kayani bakery), Sandwiches and Til Ladu (made from jaggery and sesame seeds).  

Tea and Coffee will served throughout the day. 

Our meal venue will look something like:

Time Time Menu
Breakfast 9 to 10 am Poha, Bhavarkvadi, Biscuits, Banana, Tea & Coffee
Lunch 12:10 to 1:30 pm  Sandwich, French fries, Banana
High Tea 3 to 3:30 pm  Vada Pav, Bhakarvadi, Tea/Coffee

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Do’s and Don’ts

No Smoking (🚭 ) or alcohol at the venue. Being a college, it’s not only prohibited but is also a legal offense.

Also, refer the complete code of conduct for WordCamp Pune.

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After party

Relax and have a good time at the After-Party.

Where: Classic Rock Coffee Co. (Map)
When: 7:30PM onward
Tweet: #WCPune #WCKaraoke

Don’t forget to get your WCPune name badge along!

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See you at WCPune! 🙏

Links: Schedule | Venue | Code of conduct

Pre-WordCamp Schedule: Beginners Workshop and Mixer event

WordCamps are more than just the single day conferences. They often include a lot of supplementary events organized by the local community.

WordCamp Pune is no different- we have two events lined up for tomorrow (aka the day before WordCamp 😱)

Beginners Workshop & Buildathon

Open to anyone- with or without a WCPune ticket. Lets learn about the WordPress project? What is WordPress as a software and ultimately learn how to setup a WordPress website for yourself.

Carry a laptop along and stay around to get introduced to WordPress. If you are just curious about WordPress, or want to get a blog started or want to get started as a developer, this might a good place to start.

The workshop will be conducted by Saurabh Shukla with many WordPress experts around to help you out.

Beginners Workshop and Buildathon (Pre-WordCamp event)

Saturday, Jan 14, 2017, 10:00 AM

Thought Works
6th Floor, Binarius Building, Deepak Complex, National Games Road, Shastrinagar, Yerawada Pune, IN

1 Exchangers Attending

Open to anyone- with or without a WCPune ticket. A collaborative workshop in which everyone helps everyone else learn WordPress guided by experts.

Check out this Meetup →

Mixer Event

WordCamps are social events that reward social interaction.

Exactly like the name implies, this event is intended to help you socialize (mix around) with other attendees and speakers.

The mixer is intended to provide an informal setup for attendees and speakers to interact with each other. There are no planned activities, expectations or barriers to entry- you just need to show up and be open.

I’m not sure… I am shy / I don’t speak English / I’m not from Pune.

Don’t worry, we are here for you <3

Seriously though, most of the WCPune organizing team and a lot of volunteers will be in attendance.

Come over and ask us to introduce you to anyone else, and we will oblige. If nothing else, you can chill with us!

Mixer Event (Pre-WordCamp Event)

Saturday, Jan 14, 2017, 5:00 PM

Ness Wadia College of Commerce
V.K. Jaog Path, 19, Bund Garden Rd, Sangamvadi Pune, IN

1 Exchangers Attending

The mixer is intended to provide an informal setup for attendees and speakers to interact with each other. There are no planned activities, expectations or barriers to entry- you just need to show up and be open.Show up at the Open Air Theatre.

Check out this Meetup →

Start Your New Year with a WordCamp!

New Year’s WP-Resolution – Start the year with a WordCamp! Many WordCamps are happening in India this year, starting with WordCamp Pune on 15th January.

First, a very Happy New Year to all fellow WordCampers. 🙂 🎉

2017 looks like a WordCamp year in India!

There are already four WordCamps announced on the WordCamp Central schedule in for first three months of the year 2017:

  1. WordCamp Pune (Jan 15)
  2. WordCamp Udaipur (Jan 28)
  3. WordCamp Kochi (Feb 19)
  4. WordCamp Mumbai (Mar 25-26)

We hope there would be at least four more WordCamps in the last nine months of this year, making this year have most WordCamps in a year in India! 🇮🇳

As a fresh new year has just started, why not start it with a WordCamp or to be specific WordCamp Pune which would be first WordCamp of this year! Yep, our tickets are on the sale already.

If you can’t make it to the WordCamp Pune, maybe you can start your year with WordCamp Udaipur. Their ticket is also available for the purchase.

Apart from WordCamps, you can interact with fellow WordPress community, in-person, via different meetup groups.

Last date for speaker/sponsor applications

If you wish to attend WordCamp Pune as a speaker or sponsor, you better to do it today! We will close call for speakers and call for sponsors in few days.

Already Applied?

If you have already sent your application for speaker or sponsorship, and not clear about your application status, we request you to bump email thread in your mailbox by sending it to pune@wordcamp.org.

If you did not get any email, you may send a fresh application or get in touch with us through our contact form.

We wish you happy new year once again and hope to see you at WordCamp Pune! 🙂

Buy Tickets

Do_action.org – The WordPress Hackathon for Charity comes to Pune!

There are a lot of good things that are done in this world thanks to non-profit organisations. They serve society and try to make sense of the crazy world we live in.

While many non-profits organisations do attract a lot of talent, they often find getting a helping hand from tech experts difficult. This is true especially for small and focused non-profits.

How often have you heard of a impressive non-profit but found they had no presence online?

d0_action: A WordPress Hackathon for charity in Pune

All of us involved with Pune WordPress Knowledge Exchange, are happy and proud to welcome to the first ever do_action WordPress Charity Hackathon in India.

What is do_action?

do_action is a function used through out WordPress. The idea of this event and the name of this function match perfectly. This WordPress charity hackathon started initially in Cape Town, South Africa.

It will the held in Pune, and in fact the whole of India for the first time.

You can read more on the do_action about page.

do_action hackathons are community-organised events that are focussed on using WordPress to give deserving charitable organisations their own online presence. Each do_action event includes participants from the local WordPress community coming together to plan and build brand new websites for a number of local organisations in one day.

What do we do?

  1. As WordPress enthusiasts, we help non-profits build a WordPress powered solution– get a website or setup a payment gateway, set up a simple WooCommerce store, etc.
  2. We also conduct live training and workshops for members of such non-profits and other WordPress newbies and beginners (Beginner’s Workshops). So, you can learn WordPress.
  3. You can help solve the participant’s queries and in understanding how to use WordPress. (Beginner’s Happiness Bar)
  4. You can also contribute to the WordPress project during your time there.

Who can participate?

Individuals

Anyone who can help build a WordPress website. Bloggers, programmers and administrators, anyone who knows how to build a basic WordPress website or teach someone how to use WordPress can contribute. Experts and newcomers, are all welcome.

Teams

If you are an agency or a team, you can participate as a team and help build WordPress solutions for non-profits.

Non-Profits

If you are or know a non-profit that can benefit from this initiative, please fill out the application form here. Otherwise, get in touch with the organisers on Facebook, Twitter or mail to us at pune@wordcamp.org.

When & where is do_action?

It is scheduled on 14th January 2017, 10am to 4pm.

Thanks to ThoughtWorks

This event will take place on 14th January, 2017. It will be conducted at the ThoughtWorks office in Pune.

Internet and space has been sponsored by ThoughtWorks and like last year they have been excellent supporters and very thoughtful in helping out the local WordPress community conduct workshops and hackathons.

Introducing WordCamp Pune Radio

Subah ke nau baje hain aur aap sun rahe hain WordCamp Pune Radio. Garma garam chai aur nashte se shuruwat karte hain WordCamp Pune 2017 ki!

Well, first of all it’s not an actual radio station! It’s just a venue wide public address system; basically just a number of speakers spread throughout the WordCamp Pune venue.

PA system

Through a central location, we will broadcast reminders and updates throughout the day so that you know what’s happening when and where, and don’t miss out on anything.

Since, it’s a multi-track, multi-activity WordCamp, this is also going to be the common MC for all the tracks and activities – introducing speakers, sessions, Happiness Bar rotations and much more.

In addition, we’ll be using the WCPune Radio to broadcast prize announcements (for the Bingo, for instance), open conference sessions, lost and found announcements, ( as if you don’t have mobile phones! 😉 ) etc.

We’ll also try and have a little fun and maybe play a little copyright free, public domain music too. We promise it won’t be too loud and we promise it won’t be too intrusive and we promise it will enhance and augment your experience of WordCamp Pune 2017.

#WCPune Photography Contest

You know you take all those awesome photos at every WordCamp you attend. Just make sure you use the hashtag #WCPune when you upload them and you may just win some delightful goodies!

Prizes

WordCamp Pune 2017 Goodie Bags* for the best 3 photos and a whole lot of love and appreciation from the community! 🙂

Rules

  1. Use any device.
  2. Click anything; t-shirts, sponsor tables, sessions, selfies, etc
    1. at WordCamp Pune 2017.
    2. at the events one day before WCPune.
    3. at the after-party.
  3. Upload the photos to Facebook or Twitter with the #WCPune hashtag.
    1. Only Facebook or Twitter. No other social networks.
    2. Photos without the hashtag won’t be considered.
  4. The last date for uploads is 16th January, i.e., one day after the event is over.

That’s it! Go around, attend sessions, meet new people, discuss great ideas and click awesome photos!

*What’s in those goodie bags? Well, we’ll tell you a couple of days before the WordCamp! 😉

What is the Open Conference Space about?

WordCamps are about WordPress which is the most recognisable representative of the Open Source, hacker ethic. However, the curation at WordCamps is a controlled and supervised activity. No matter how true to the cause and transparent the speaker selection is, it’ll always have an organiser bias.

So, as an experiment and a homage to BarCamps that originally inspired WordCamps, we’re bringing the spirit of openness to WordCamp Pune 2017 in a limited sense in the form of Open Conference Slots.

So, if you have applied as a speaker but didn’t make it into the official program, use this space. If you couldn’t think of a topic in time but think of something on the day of the event, maybe while attending someone else’s talk, use this space. If you don’t agree with a session and would like to present a counter-point, use this space. If you just want like minded people to discuss something together, use this space.

A lot of people have asked us what this means and honestly, not many know of Barcamps and open spaces, so a post explaining things was in order! 🙂

Basics

  • Four rooms with four 20 minute slots each; total 16 slots.
  • No pre-decided sessions or schedule.
  • Anyone can walk in and pick any of the 16 slots on the day of the event.
  • The slots will be allotted on “first-come-first-serve” basis.
  • The topics will only be vetted for 100% GPL compliance. Other than that, they can be about anything.

For Potential Speakers

  • You pick any available slot on the day of the event.
    • There are only 16 slots. No one will regulate or control how spots are assigned and to who, so pick one before someone else does.
  • You get total 20 minutes. A volunteer will be timing your session. No extra 5 minutes, not even one. If you don’t finish in 20 minutes, you are free to take the discussion forward anywhere on the premises.
  • You can speak about anything as long as it is 100% GPL compatible.
    • In principle, you could even speak about non-WordPress related things but do remember that the audience is here for and because of WordPress and speaking about other things may translate into an empty room and a wasted slot.
    • There’s usually a lot of debate and disagreement on what is related to WordPress. That’s why we leave this decision to you instead of deciding if the topic is related to WordPress.
  • You don’t have to lecture.
    • Host a discussion on a topic that you care about.
    • Demonstrate your product or website.
    • Conduct a quick Workshop, DIY tutorial about a common WordPress thingy.
    • Have a fiery debate on a topic of your choice.
    • Conduct an AMA or a QnA around a topic where audience members throw questions at you and you answer them.
    • Anything else you can think of.
  • Read this for more clarity on how open spaces work, in general: http://www.mindviewinc.com/Conferences/OpenSpaces.html

For Audience Members

The talks will be added to the schedule at the event. This will be a massive flex print-out like the last time:

You pick and choose to attend any of the sessions available at any given time, just like the rest of the program.

Cover Photo Credit Linux User Group, Oregon State University

Workshop for new/first time Speakers

It is not an easy task to get on the stage in front of an audience and speak for 20-30 minutes. It’s even more challenging to go a step further and connect and engage with the audience so that they don’t doze off in the middle of your session.

However, these are just skills; things you can learn and practise. No one is a born speaker, everyone learns it either by themselves or with others’ help.

If you have never spoken in public before or, the last time you spoke, you were a nervous wreck or, you saw people sleeping in the middle of your session, worry no more. Help is at hand.

Announcing a Workshop on Public Speaking & Presentation Skills specifically designed for speakers at WordCamps and Meetups. With this workshop, you’ll be able to:

  1. Structure your session in an easy to follow, easy to digest and easy to remember manner for your audience.
  2. Handle stress and stage fright so that you can focus less on your shivering limbs and more on getting your points across.
  3. Use your body language to aid and abet your talk and stage presence to drive audience attention.
  4. Engage your audience using well-known and tested strategies.

Using this Workshop, you can prepare and present your own session at a subsequent meetup or even WordCamp Pune, 2017.

Here’s the event on 17th December, 2017. Make sure you RSVP:

Public Speaking & Presentation Skills Workshop (for WordCamp & Meetup speakers)

Saturday, Dec 17, 2016, 12:00 PM

rtCamp Solutions Pvt Ltd
G-2/2, Liberty Phase-2, North Main Road, Koregaon Park Pune, IN

1 Exchangers Attending

Session 1: 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm Structuring your SessionSession 2: 1:00pm to 2:00 pm Handling Stress & Stage FrightSession 3: 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm Body Language and Stage PresenceSession 4: 3:00pm to 4:00 pm Engaging the AudienceAbout the conductor:Saurabh Shukla is the lead organiser of WordCamp Pune 2017 and this meetup group. He’s spoken at mu…

Check out this Meetup →

We’ll try and live-stream or record the workshop but can’t promise that. The best bet is to make it to Pune on the 17th.

WordCamp Pune is over. Check out the next edition!