IT Monks’ Highlights from WordCamp Europe 2024

This year, the IT Monks team was privileged to attend the WordCamp Europe 2024 event in Torino, Italy. While we’ve been to WordCamps before, each event is a unique and thrilling experience. WordCamp Europe 2024 was no different! The insightful talks and workshops inspired us, and the opportunity to network with individuals who have dedicated their lives to building businesses and innovating with this open-source software was truly exceptional. 

WC EU 2024 was amazing, and there won’t be enough space in one blog post to review everything we’ve seen and done there. Still, we’ll try to recap the speeches and insights that impressed us the most. To begin with, let’s share the IT Monks agency’s founder reflections on #WCEU 2024:

#WCEU2024 – How Was It

WordCamp is a three-day conference focused on contributing to WordPressWordPressOpen-source content management system (CMS) that allows users to create and manage websites and blogs.
More About WordPress and discussing a wide range of topics related to this open-source platform. This year, the summer event was held from June 13th to 15th at the Lingotto Conference and Exhibition Centre in Torino. We enjoyed our time in Italy a lot! The picturesque and welcoming atmosphere makes you fall in love with the place when you arrive.

The event hosted 2940 attendees who arrived from 96 countries worldwide. A dedicated team of 250 volunteers helped to organize the event, including me as a representative from our WordPress development agency. It’s been a big honor to join WordCamp Europe 2024 as a volunteer for the first time in my life!

WordCamps are not only about insightful and inspirational presentations and contributions. At the event, we met many wonderful people with whom we share common interests. We spoke a lot, shared our experiences, and even had an opportunity to record a couple of interviews that we’ll share with you shortly. So, stay tuned and ensure you follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram!

Day 1 – Contributor Day

Traditionally, WordCamp Europe 2024 started with a Contributor Day. As the name suggests, multiple teams joined that day to contribute to the open-source WordPress project. All types of contributions are welcome – from writing documentationDocumentationThe process of creating, organizing, and maintaining written materials that provide information about a web project.
More About Documentation and assisting with handling support tickets to contributing to software development, design, and marketing.

This year, 726 contributors worked together in 25 teams to support and enhance the open-source WordPress project. By the end of the Day 3, we discovered that the contributors managed to translate 79,059 “strings” for the WordPress UI across 29 languages, updated documentation for upcoming WordPress version 6.6, worked on improving pluginPluginA piece of software that can be easily installed and activated on a CMS platform to enhance its capabilities.
More About Plugin security, and onboarded contributors for support forums and testing teams. 

Days 2-3 – Conferences

Joost de Valk and Juliette Reinders Folmer opened the conference day by discussing the importance of making open-source software projects sustainable in the long run. 

Following their impressive speech, we enjoyed the presentation about the Twenty Twenty-Four default WordPress themeWordPress ThemeA collection of files that determines a website’s overall design and functionality.
More About WordPress Theme by Jessica Lyschik from Greyd, who spoke about the innovative features of the latter, pointing out that the default theme brought many changes to how we understand WordPress. Rather than being a blog-only theme, it expanded the horizons and unveiled the diverse other possibilities of the CMSCMSA content management system is software aiding users to create, manage, and modify website content.
More About CMS. 

On Day 2, we attended the presentation about Interactivity APIAPIApplication Programming Interface serves as a bridge that enables different software systems to communicate and interact with each other.
More About API by Michał Czapliński by Automattic. If you are a web developer, this is the thing that we recommend to revise. The talk showcases the culmination of a multi-year effort to simplify creating interactive web experiences with WordPress.

The second and third days of the conference saw 60 presentations and workshops across three tracks. The topics included WordPress development, accessibilityAccessibilityThe practice of designing and developing websites that can be easily accessed and used by individuals with disabilities.
More About Accessibility, sustainability, AI, cybersecurityCybersecurityIt involves defending computers, servers, mobile devices, electronic systems, networks, and data from digital attacks.
More About Cybersecurity, community, etc. 

Traditionally, Day 3 ended with a Family Photo of all participants of the WordCamp 2024 event. What a moment to remember!

Meeting with Partners 

At the WordCamp Europe 2024, we engaged in fruitful discussions with representatives of various companies and partners, including Weglot. Our collaborative efforts are evident in the support we provide to multiple projects, utilizing their multilingualism and website translation systems.

Our discussions revolved around the exciting plans for the system’s development, including the cutting-edge implementation of AI in processes and innovative strategies for infrastructure improvement. A key focus was on data migration challenges from other platforms to WordPress and the complexities of highly loaded enterprise portals.

The final discussion, of equal importance, was dedicated to the SEOSEOSearch Engine Optimization involves optimizing various website elements to make it more attractive to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
More About SEO optimization of sites using Weglot. A live demonstration and testing at one of the demo stands showcased the impressive results of Weglot’s system, instilling confidence in our team.

Some of the stand-out features provided by Weglot include:

• Automatic machine translation for your website content with the support of 100+ languages.
• User-friendly setup with a simple API key integration with no coding skills required.
• Intuitive dashboard for managing translations with the option to edit or hire professional translators manually.
• Automatically creates SEO-friendly URLs for translated pages, supporting meta tag translations.
• Compatibility with all WordPress themes and plugins and seamless integration with WooCommerceWooCommerceA free, open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress.
  More About WooCommerce for ecommerce translations.
• Content is served from a fast, scalable cloud infrastructure, which minimizes website loading times. 

Overall, the collaboration at WordCamp Europe 2024 highlighted the importance of innovative translation solutions like Weglot in enhancing web presence. Meeting with partners is always a pleasure, especially at such big events as WCEU. We look forward to meeting again and working together to achieve greater success.

WordPress VIP Event

WordPress VIP is a high-level partnership between WordPress.com and a select group of agencies that have demonstrated exceptional expertise and commitment to the WordPress ecosystem. By becoming a WordPress VIP partner, WordPress development companies can demonstrate their commitment to quality, gain a competitive edge, and deliver the enterprise-grade solutions that high-profile clients demand. This partnership is a valuable asset that can significantly contribute to the agency’s growth and success.

As a WordPress VIP Silver Agency Partner, the IT Monks team was honored to be invited to an exclusive WordPress VIP evening event where WordPress Co-founder Matt Mullenweg spoke. Meeting Matt personally at the WordCamp Europe event and discussing future development plans for the platform and the industry, in general, was a huge privilege for our team.

Matt Mullenweg: Mid-Year Project Update on WordPress

Closing the Day 3 of WordCamp Europe 2024, Matt took the stage. It’s always such an exciting experience to listen to the person who stood at the roots of such a giant as WordPress. During his speech, Matt stressed the success of the contributor mentorship program and even introduced us to the graduates who were in the hall with us. 

More importantly, we were introduced to the mid-year project update on WordPress and 11 things to ensure that WordPress remains sustainable for decades: 

1. Simple things should be easy and intuitive, and complex things possible.
2. Blogs and dynamic sites are better.
3. Documentation should be wiki-easy to edit.
4. Forums should be front and center.
5. Plugins and themes with community infrastructure.
6. Great theme previews and diverse aesthetics.
7. We can’t over-index for guidelines and requirements.
8. Feedback loops are so important.
9. Core should be opinionated and quirky.
10. If you make WordPress, use WordPress.
11. Stay close to our end-users

Following Matt’s presentation, the audience had a chance to ask the WordPress co-founder questions on various topics, such as improvements to GutenbergGutenbergA block-based editor for WordPress.
More About Gutenberg and WordPress Playground. 

You can watch the full version of Matt’s keynote at the WordCamp 2024 below. Enjoy it!

See You Soon!

We’re already looking forward to the next WordCamp adventure! Join us at WordCamp US 2024 in Portland, where we’ll continue to learn, connect, and be inspired by the WordPress community.