WordCamp Kuala Lumpur 2017

Recently, Tadpole’s Rindy Portfolio helped to organize WordCamp Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia.

Rindy relocated to KL in June 2016, and soon after linked up with the local WordPress MeetUp group run by Sam Suresh, a local technologist and WordPresser. Back in 2010, there had been a WordCamp Malaysia. But until Sam started the MeetUp group more recently, there hadn’t been much organized WP activity. Sam and Rindy started discussing the possibilities of putting on a WordCamp.

Sam took on the role of Lead Organizer and secured budget approval with WordCamp Central, after identifying a local hotel as a venue. Rindy brought experience and know-how, having helped organize several WordCamps in NYC, and Sam added two other local contacts to fill out the main organizing team: Liew Cheon Fong, a longtime tech blogger who spoke at the earlier WordCamp Malaysia, and Nazrin Razlan, who is currently interning with Sam’s company, Mu Dot My.

Together with a wider group of volunteers, they helped put on a one-day, two-track WordCamp conference that included 15 sessions, 18 speakers, and nearly 200 attendees from over a dozen countries. There were speakers from Automattic and Google, but also several with no previous public speaking experience – just simple WordPress users with insights to share about how they use our favorite democratic publishing platform.

Having pulled off what many described as an informative, smoothly run, and most importantly, FUN WordCamp, the organizing team is looking forward to an even bigger and better event next year … or as soon as they recover!