Promoted as the premier open-source summit of Asia, WordCamp Asia 2025 will take place from February 20 to 22nd, 2025 in the great capital of the Philippines, Manila. The organizing team has published a ton of information over the last four months. If you, like me, are more a just-in-time preparer it might be overwhelming to get through all the posts and see the forest for the trees.
First things first: If you haven’t purchased your ticket, it’s high time. You need to register for a WordPress.org account and login, before you can buy a ticket.
The WordCamp Asia 2025 is not one event but three: Contributor Day, a conference with talks, and workshops, and YouthCamp, with a schedule for kids 8 – 17 years old. It will happen at the Philippines International Convention Center (PICC). That’s also where the After Party will take place on Saturday night that concludes this marvelous event.
I like to get at least a few days of sightseeing in before I enter the convention center for all the fantastic WordCamp activities. The two posts from the local organizing team about Philippine Culture and Filipino Food gave me a great insight into what I can expect and how I can blend in. Or at least don’t make a fool out of myself and others. I’ll share photos on Bluesky.
Hey friends! 🌴✨ Get ready for an epic adventure at WordCamp Asia 2025 in vibrant Manila!
I’ll be diving deep into the WordPress universe – hanging out at Contributor Day (February 20th) and rocking both conference days (February 21-22nd). Want to connect? I’m totally open to grabbing coffee, lunch, or catching up between sessions at the Philippine International Convention Center.
Check out my public calendar and snag a slot – let’s turn this tech gathering into an unforgettable networking experience! Can’t wait to swap stories, share insights, and soak up the incredible WordPress community energy in the Philippines. Who’s in? 🚀🇵🇠#WordCampAsia2025
It’s not all about grinding away! Alongside the After Party, sponsors have got some cool Side events lined up. Check out the list to see how you can join others for a fun run, a chill sunset hangout, Google’s Site Kit plugin workshop, or Omnisend’s agency meetup.
Just today, WooCommerce announced its Woo Community Meetup @ WCAsia 2025.
Contributor Day
Contributor Day is always such a fun kickoff for me at a regional WordCamp. I finally get to hang out with the folks I’ve been teaming up with on Slack and GitHub for years, and now we can actually chill face-to-face. Some of them are old pals, while others are fresh faces who are already making waves in the open-source scene. Plus, it’s a lot easier to catch up with friends before we’re all swamped by 2,000 more people flooding into the conference center—otherwise, it’s just a nod, a smile, and a quick wave as we pass by each other!
Make sure you check out the chance to connect with a Book in the Human Library! This awesome event lets you chat face-to-face with “Human Books,” folks who have some pretty amazing stories, unique viewpoints, and cool skills to share. You can ask me anything about Site Editor, Playground, Block development and contributing. My time slot is from 10:30 am to noon (12).
If you have a hard time selecting one of the 20 team tables, check out our Contributor Wizard . It is a step-by-step wizard to help you decide which team might be a good fit for you!
On Contributor Day, you will find me at the Test Team table, and I will enjoy working with the table leads Krupa Nanda and Olga Gleckler.
🚨 Note: Appropriate attire is required for entry to PICC. Guests wearing shorts, undershirts (sando),or slippers/flip-flops will not be allowed to enter. PICC reserves the right to refuse entry to any person who is not appropriately dressed.
Selected talks from the presentation schedule
The WordPress community totally crushed it with over 250 proposals for talks and workshops! We’ve got three tracks lined up, and if you can’t swing by, no worries—everything will be livestreamed on YouTube. Since everyone’s got their own interests, it’s tough to pick just a few talks to mention in one go, so I’m sticking with my own favorites. All in all, the program team has put together a fabulous schedule featuring awesome speakers and cool topics.
Friday, February 21, 2025
Matias Ventura kicks off the talks with his Keynote about the future of WordPress and Gutenberg.Ventura has been the lead architect of the Gutenberg project. TIL1 that Ventura was one of the co-designers of the Twenty Eleven default theme.
The rest for Friday morning I will spend at Ryan Welcher’s Workshop: The Block Developer Cookbook. Welcher collected a few more real life examples on how to tackle topics like block transforms, adding editorial notes, creating a custom format and more. This year, I hope the keynote won’t go over, so everyone interested in the workshop has the opportunity to start it at the beginning.
Christy Nyiri, design lead at Special Project’s at Automattic, talk is next on my list. Redefining WordPress Design: Innovating Block Themes. Nyiri will showcase front and back end of a range of websites, highlighting how the team uses the latest WordPress feature to push the boundaries of block theme design.
On the re-run, I will watch Abhishek Rijal‘s lightning talk on Getting started with the Interactivity API. The senior software developer from Awesome Motive, explores the new possibilities this API brings to your Gutenberg blocks. I heard from quite a few developers who have a hard time finding a use case for the new API.
The WordPress Speed Build Challenge between Nick Diego and Jessica Lyschik, hosted by Jamie Marsland, starts us into the afternoon of the first day. If you are in Manila, I highly recommend being in the room for this spectacle! See also the article in the news
I’m wrapping up my first day by hanging out with BobWP and some other cool hosts from the Do The Woo Network at their sponsor booth. I’d totally love to see you there between 2 and 3 pm. Swing by and say hi! Can’t wait to meet you!
The rest of the afternoon, I’m planning to wander around the Sponsor hall and chat with everyone at the booths. I’m truly interested to see which AI tools have popped up in the WordPress scene and what cool new products the plugin developers have come up with.
Solutions Spotlight
Another kind of presentation is listed under Solutions Spotlight; short presentation from selected sponsors. Here is the schedule as of today. It might fill up more as we get closer to the event.
Saturday, February 22, 2025
After breakfast, I’m kicking off my Saturday with Riad Benguella‘s talk on the new DataViews and DataForms and the future of structured content in WordPress. Benguella’s gonna share the story of how these two cool APIs came to be and give us the scoop on how they’ll fit into the wp-admin redesign project, plus what we can look forward to down the line.
Autumn Fjeld and Candy Tsai are going to take the audience on a fun ride into Content Modeling, Custom Post Types, and Custom Fields. Both of them have been playing around with block bindings and patterns. They’re aiming for a totally Editor-based way to manage custom data, and they even thought about creating a “take it to go” data model plugin. I mean, who else is wondering: is there life after the Advanced Custom Fields plugin?
Alongside the Data Model talk, Isotta Peira and Hari Shanker will chat about WordPress Contributions: Building a Transparent System for a Stronger Community. It’s a topic I really care about, so I might just head over there instead and catch the other talk later on YouTube.
After the lunch break I will get ready for my presentation to Create a demo with Playground. I chatted the other day with Roger Williams of Kinsta about the talk.
The last speaker slot goes to Matt Mullenweg who might again hold an AMA. So prepare your questions.
The After Party will be a great place to unwind from three days of the WordCamp and to make more new friends at a true Filipino fiesta.
On Sunday, the folks from WordCamp Asia will head out all over the globe, bringing along all the good vibes, tons of community energy, fresh ideas, and new pals to team up with, united in the purpose of democratizing publishing with WordPress. As they take their experiences and inspiration back home, you can bet they’ll be sharing stories about the incredible sessions they attended, the amazing connections they made, and the innovative projects they’re excited to launch. Together, they’ll work on spreading knowledge and fostering a collaborative spirit, ensuring that the power of WordPress continues to thrive in communities everywhere.
