{"id":1431,"date":"2025-07-27T17:01:56","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T14:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/?p=1431"},"modified":"2025-08-02T14:37:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T11:37:52","slug":"why-government-should-support-wordcamps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/why-government-should-support-wordcamps\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Government should support WordCamps \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On March 08, 2025, the WordPress community in Mukono held WordCamp Mukono 2025<\/a>. This was followed up with WordCamp Jinja 2025<\/a> on 24th<\/sup>-25th<\/sup> May, 2025. And this July 18-19, 2025, there will be WordCamp Masaka 2025<\/a>. This will be followed by WordCamp Lira 2025<\/a> on August 30, 2025.\u00a0 Each year, the WordPress community organizes between 4-6 WordPress events, including WordCamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who may not be up to speed with WordCamps and WordPress, let me make you understand. In simple terms, a WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordPress is a content management system (CMS) or publishing platform for building websites that is powering 62% of all websites in the world. According to internetlivestats.com, there are over 1.5 billion websites on the world wide web today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

WordCamps are usually informal, community-organized events that are put together by regular WordPress users. Speakers are selected within the local WordPress community (or abroad) and have to speak about topics related to WordPress, website development or technology. Everyone from casual WordPress users, developers, bloggers, designers, content creators can participate, share ideas, and get to know each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Uganda, there have been WordCamps in Kampala, Jinja, Entebbe, Masaka, Lira and Mukono. I was the organizer for WordCamp Lira 2024, which happened to be the first in northern Uganda. Last year, in Lira, attendees came from faraway places such as Kotido, Masaka, Entebbe, Kampala, Tororo, Gulu and Lango subregion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should be noted that the first WordCamp was organized in San Francisco by Matt Mullenweg (the founder of WordPress) in 2006, and since then local communities around the world have organized hundreds of WordCamps in different cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you can see, there is a thriving & vibrant community of WordPress developers and users in Uganda. Consequently, Uganda is now highly ranked in global WordPress community. In 2023 alone, Uganda had four WordCamps (in Jinja, Entebbe, Kampala, and Masaka) which placed Uganda in 4th<\/sup> position globally. Spain had 10, USA had 9, India had 6, and Philippines and Poland both had 3. In 2024, Spain was leading again with 11 WordPress events, India has 8, USA has 6, and Uganda had five events. This again, put Uganda in 4th<\/sup> position globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uganda being in 4th<\/sup> position globally is a good thing, and should be celebrated. It also provides Uganda with several advantages, which unfortunately our government doesn\u2019t seem to recognize. For example, in 2022, Uganda featured among the top 50 countries with a high Online Service Index, and these must be related to the vibrant WordPress community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a number of foreigners flying into the country to speak at these WordCamps. At the recently held WordCamp Jinja, and WordCamp Masaka, over 4 speakers were foreigners. This results into hotel books, air tickets (maybe Ugandan Airlines), food and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WordCamps are all approved and partially funded by WordPress Central. However, funding from WordPress Central is not enough (only about 60%), and there\u2019s need to raise some revenue locally by getting local sponsors. This is where our government should come in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, these growth in WordPress community has not been supported by government.  Yet several government officials (in Ministry of ICT & National Guidance, UCC and NITA-U) attend these events. In this last 5 years, the government has rightly stated repeatedly that ICT is one of key pillars driving economic growth and employment, in addition to agriculture, and tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My view is that globally recognized events & activities such as WordCamps should be supported financially, because they serve as incubation centres and within a short time produce high-end web developers. With more support, the ticket cost will come down (it is now about $10), allowing more youth to attend & gain critical industry skills. The attendees of WordCamps are mostly youth & students who go to learn practical skills, network with fellow tech enthusiasts and later create own digital jobs & businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And lastly, just like we recognize those who win medals for our country at global sporting events, we should also recognize hardworking people like Rogers Mukalele<\/a>, Kateregga Muhammed<\/a>, Lawrence Bahiirwa<\/a>, Joan Logose<\/a>, Arthur Kasirye<\/a>, Moses Ssebuwufu<\/a>, and of course yours truly, for the outstanding work they are doing in growing the WordPress community in Uganda & Africa as a whole. These people, are the ones responsible for Uganda\u2019s 4th<\/sup> position globally in organizing WordPress events.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was first written in December 2024<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On March 08, 2025, the WordPress community in Mukono held WordCamp Mukono 2025. This was followed up with WordCamp Jinja 2025 on 24th-25th May, 2025. And this July 18-19, 2025, there will be WordCamp Masaka 2025. This will be followed by WordCamp Lira 2025 on August 30, 2025.\u00a0 Each year, the WordPress community organizes between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13995601,"featured_media":1433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-chief"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/files\/2025\/07\/WordCamp2.png?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13995601"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1431"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1474,"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1431\/revisions\/1474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lira.wordcamp.org\/2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}