WordCamp Asia 2026 wrapped up on April 11 at the Jio World Convention Centre, bringing together 2,281 attendees for three days of contribution, conversation, and community. The event followed the familiar format of a Contributor Day leading into two conference days.
WordCamp Asia 2026
The Contributor Day brought together more than 1,500 participants working across 20+ tables, guided by 38 table leads. “Polyglots contributors suggested more than 7,000 strings and reviewed 3,200 of them. Photo contributors uploaded 76 images. The Test team worked on more than 20 tickets, and 55 contributors joined Training.” reported Automattician Brett McSherry.
There were workshops on Beginners Guide to WordPress & SEO and Block Theme building and 17 participants, aged 8 to 15, attended the Youth Camp.
The second day started with James LePage’s session on AI. Artificial intelligence in fact remained a central theme across sessions in the next two days. The fireside chat with Mary Hubbard shed light on a critical and timely issue: data security. She also signed a collaboration agreement with DY Patil Agriculture & Technical University, Talsande, Kolhapur.
WordPress Speed Build Challenge, facilitated by Ajay Maurya, Craig Gomes, and Jamie Marsland grabbed the interest of the attendees. The assignment was simple – build a complete WordPress website in 30 minutes, live on stage, using only the Full Site Editor — no page builders, no custom code. It ended in a tie.
Closing Keynote
The closing keynote took an unexpected turn when Matt Mullenweg was unable to attend due to a health issue. Mary Hubbard stepped in to deliver his planned talk, followed by a Q&A session featuring Hubbard alongside Chenda Ngak, Peter Wilson, and Sergey Biryukov. Mullenweg still participated remotely, sharing answers that were read out by Chenda Ngak during the session.
Hubbard’s keynote highlighted India’s long-standing role in the WordPress ecosystem (“India’s role isn’t in WordPress is not recent.”), pointing to contributions from companies like rtCamp and the sustained efforts of local communities organizing WordCamps and meetups across the country.
The focus then turned to Education and CampusConnect. She called it a “homegrown” Indian initiative that has grown into a global movement. Since its launch, the WordPress Campus Connect program has reached over 5,000 students through 32 events and new events are being planned in countries like Poland, Croatia, Japan, and Pakistan. Today, 14 active student clubs are carrying this momentum forward.
The impact is already visible worldwide. In Uganda, a single Campus Connect program introduced WordPress to 12 campuses, engaging 1,300 students, with contributions from 81 educators—all through one event. In India alone, the initiative has already reached more than 2,000 students.
She also touched upon the new features coming up in WordPress 7.0 which was supposed to be released at the event but had to be postponed. She mentioned Real time collaboration, a new refreshed Admin, and AI architecture. “When 7.0 ships, it will not be the end of the cycle, it will be the starting line for everything that the community builds on top of it.”, she said.
She also shared a glimpse into the future releases. “WordPress 7.1 is already in motion. Multi-site support will improve media handling and performance continue to evolve and the infrastructure being built will power sites that do not exist yet for users discovering the open web for the first time.”, she continued.
WordPress is not a company. It is a shared commitment to keeping the web open. We’ve built the foundation and now we build the house together and that commitment lives in the work at Contributor Day, in the release cycle, and in every patch.
The event concluded after announcing the next WC Asia host: Malaysia.
A New Annual Flagship Event – WordCamp India
Matt Mullenweg announced that next year onwards there would be a fourth Flagship event – WordCamp India, joining the ranks of WordCamp Asia, WordCamp Europe, and WordCamp US.
India’s WordPress community has seen sustained growth across events, contributions, and outreach. The country hosted three WordCamps in January 2025 alone—Ahmedabad, Kolhapur, and Kolkata—while global trends in WordPress Meetup events from January 2023 to June 2024 show strong in-person participation in cities like Ahmedabad and Mumbai, with at least 165 RSVPs. In terms of core contributions, India ranked second for WordPress 6.8, with 981 contributions.
The idea of WordCamp India had been under discussion for some time. At the WordCamp Asia 2024 Q&A session, Mullenweg jested, “Do WordCamp India! I’ll be there.”
WP Tavern founder Jeff Chandler also supported it: “WordCamp India should be a thing. It needs to be a thing. There’s more than enough people and support to turn it into a thing.” Aditya Kane, WC Asia 2026 organizer published an article back in 2024 titled, Thoughts on the light that could be WordCamp India.
WordCamp India itself has a long but intermittent history. The first edition was held in 2009 in Delhi, attended by Mullenweg and his friend Om. It returned in 2021 as a regional online event spanning three weekends from January 30 to February 14, featuring workshops, contributor sessions, and expert talks. It was attended by both Mullenweg & Josepha Haden, the then Executive Director of the WordPress.
Though the people are excited about the new event, some concerns remain whether it will stunt the growth of the local events.
The next flagship event on the calendar is WordCamp Europe in June.