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HeroPress: How a Law Student Ended up with WordPress

Hear Astha read her own essay aloud. I come from a transitional generation, and somehow, I’ve ended up as a hard core non-tech person in a heavily tech-driven space. Fitting into a box has never really been my thing. And perhaps, that has been the point. How often do you think you’re lost? We often mistake not seeing a path for being lost. We grow up believing that a meaningful life comes with a roadmap: choose a direction, follow it, and eventually arrive somewhere. But what happens when you can’t see the road ahead? Sometimes, the path doesn’t exist yet. My own journey has rarely looked linear. I started blogging on WordPress at 16 because I wanted somewhere to put my thoughts and my poetry. I studied law, organised events alongside it, and while pursuing my passion for public speaking, discovered my love for community building. And eventually, through a rather topsy-turvy turn of events, I found myself turning my legal background into entrepreneurship. Astha giving opening remarks at EmpowerWP Astha in a saree at WCAsia ’25 From the outside, these may look like a lot of deviations. Even to me, there were moments when the future looked bleak and hazy. I wondered whether I was falling behind while people around me seemed to have “figured it out,” found their direction, and were already excelling. I found myself feeling lost. Regaining control by finding a pattern But looking back, and eventually connecting the dots, I realised there was a constant. A pattern I kept coming back to: people, ideas, purpose, and the desire to contribute. The mediums kept changing. The underlying pull did not. And that’s when it hit me: Sometimes, not fitting into the box isn’t the problem. Rather, it is the answer. Who am I and where it all started So, let me start again. My name is Astha, and I discovered the WordPress community back in 2023. I was a law student who happened to stumble upon a WordPress anniversary meetup, where conversations were already underway about WordCamp Bhopal happening again after quite a while. I started as an organiser, partly because of the sheer joy of doing what the job demanded— the knack for managing things… and people. We had two broad purposes: reignite the WordPress ecosystem in town and show attendees a glimpse of Bhopal in the best possible way. And then, WordCamp Bhopal happened. WordCamp Bhopal felt like a family reunion, except that you’re meeting those people for the very first time. Read my experience as an Organiser at my first ever WordCamp | WordCamp Bhopal 2023 What next after organizing the first WordCamp? I had an incredible time, but also, I had no intentions of dwelling any further. But credit to the people I met here— WordCamp Mumbai happened. And somewhere between Bhopal and Mumbai, something shifted. Memento by WCMumbai WP22 anniversary cake Memento by WCPokhara Family photo from WordCamp Bhopal 2023 The fire these two events ignited in me was insane. By 2024, I found myself thinking much more consciously about the gap I saw between my own field and the technology ecosystem, and between technology and the larger society around us. I started looking for ways to bridge those gaps wherever I could. I began seeing community events differently. Not just as events. But as opportunities to bring people together around something that could potentially make a difference. I think community events are a great way— a stage from where you could bring a change. It’s an opening for you to utilize, to serve a purpose. Outsider to Builder I was supposed to be an outsider. I was one. But the cordial, welcoming, “just a smile away” setup of this community had me, for good. I think the give-and-take in my case sums up as perspective. Witnessing grandeur of the OG Camp And then came the ultimate, Crown of Jewels, Camp of Camps: WordCamp Asia. I had an opportunity to emcee at WCAsia. Absolutely loved the energy. That’s probably the least I can say, because words still don’t quite justify how I felt at that moment. Exposure is so important— culturally, professionally, and in all the other ways possible. For me, WordCamp Asia was exactly that. Some people knew of my presence there. A majority did not. The people I knew helped me connect with the people I didn’t. But there were also those who came by without knowing me at all— just a smile or a kind word away. Emcees at WordCamp Asia 2025 WPBesties winner image feat. Taco, Astha, Anooja, Michelle, Nathan & Lokesh Indian contingent at WordCamp Asia 2025 I can’t seem to get over from WordCamp Asia! It reminded me, once again, how simple yet profound human connections can be. I came back apart from a sore throat, with a rejuvenated sense of self, and perhaps a little more courage… which led me to lead EmpowerWP Bhopal 2025. Shifting focus from What → Why : EmpowerWP Bhopal This time, the question wasn’t simply what event can we organise? It was who are we organising it for? This was the time when Women In WordPress were organising women’s day event across the globe. We wanted to bring women in Bhopal into the conversation who weren’t necessarily already part of the ecosystem— homemakers, women looking to upskill, women on career breaks, small business owners, and women who had, for one reason or another, found themselves somewhere outside the active workforce. When we envisioned EmpowerWP Bhopal, we knew it had to be inclusive— not just for the conventional attendees, but also for the very women who have shaped our lives. Trying to make digital opportunities feel a little closer to home. It went beyond our expectations in the best possible way. Newspaper report highlighting EmpowerWP (Women’s day event) Read about EmpowerWP: A journey of Growth and Inclusion And then came the WP Build Tour. Touring across the State: Igniting the fire amongst students If EmpowerWP was about creating a

WordPress.org blog: Students Built 108 Websites in Two Weeks in Bangladesh

In July, students at two campuses in Kishoreganj, Bangladesh, built 108 websites. In eastern Uganda, a workshop that arrived to find no electricity at the school ran anyway, for more than 100 learners, because a former student had asked for it. In Costa Rica, three university students taught a three-session WordPress class to 40 high schoolers, then wrote down exactly how they did it so anyone else could run the same class. None of these students paid to take part, and most had never built a website before. Those workshops came out of two programs. WordPress Campus Connect brings free, hands-on WordPress sessions to schools and universities, run by local volunteers working from a shared curriculum. WordPress Credits goes further, placing students in mentored internships where they contribute to WordPress itself and earn academic credit for the work. Credits passed 226 graduates in July, up from 199 in June, and now works with 38 partner institutions across 16 countries. What the Students Built The Kishoreganj series was organized by Muhibul Haque, who brought Campus Connect to two institutions two weeks apart. Students at Kishoreganj University built 38 sites in the first session. At Kishoreganj Polytechnic Institute, where guest speaker Shipon Karmakar traveled more than 80 kilometers to attend, they built nearly 70 more. The success stories page for the series counts more than 150 participating students so far, with two further institutions still to come. A workshop in Spain took a different route to the same result. Josep Morán ran two four-hour sessions for 100 vocational students at Escola Pia Sta. Anna in Mataró, who used Playground and AI assistance to build a working plugin that calculates the best time for shore fishing in the city. Students and faculty pointed to the same two takeaways afterward: the certificate they received, and the fact that the skills map onto jobs that exist locally. A Workshop Without Power Bulamogi College Gadumire is on the list of Campus Connect schools in eastern Uganda because of Mariam Nairuba. At an event in Kaliro last December, she asked organizer Moses Ssebunya whether the program could come to her former school. She handled the arrangements with the administration herself, and on July 29 she navigated the team there. More than 100 learners were waiting. So was the school’s Director of Studies, who learned that day there was no electricity. The team had brought laptops, a projector, and extension cables, none of which were useful now. Rather than cancel, they put two questions to the room instead: what do you already know about WordPress, and what would you like to know? “The room exploded,” the organizers wrote in their recap of the day. Students asked whether WordPress was free, how secure WordPress sites really are, and whether they could become developers themselves. John Wayera, one of two first-time volunteers alongside Nairuba, wrote the questions up on the blackboard as they came. The team copied down every answer. Before they left, they presented the school with a Certificate of Appreciation, which the Head Teacher received in front of the governing body. Students Teaching Students in Costa Rica Rita Robles Loaiza published two pilots built on the premise that the students who just learned this are the best people to teach it next. In the first, three students from the second WordPress Credits cohort at Universidad Fidélitas designed and delivered a workshop for 40 high school girls. The goal of the event is to encourage and increase female participation in STEM academic careers. Their venue was Patrones Hermosos, a science and engineering camp run by Tecnológico de Monterrey and MIT that came to Costa Rica for the first time this year. Every participant built and presented a website, satisfaction came back at 100 percent, and the team turned the whole thing into a replicable guide that any school or community group can pick up and run. The second pilot has a longer horizon. Thirteen students at Liceo Experimental Bilingüe José Figueres Ferrer, the first high school in the Americas to join WordPress Credits, are working with the Costa Rican Spanish Polyglots team to translate WordPress into es_CR for their community service requirement. When they finish, WordPress will read a little more like home for every Costa Rican who installs it. Get Involved There is no cost to bring any of this to a school. Campus Connect gives an organizer a ready-made curriculum and a certificate for every student who completes it. WordPress Credits gives a student a mentor, real contributions to software that runs more than 40 percent of the web, and something concrete to put on a resume. Student Clubs give a campus group a reason to keep meeting after the workshop ends. Education Initiatives WordPress Education offers three practical ways for learners to develop skills, gain practical experience, and build confidence as open source contributors. Credits Campus Connect Student Clubs The full Monthly Education Buzz Report for July 2026 has the events that didn’t fit here, including a Campus Connect run entirely by students at Kyoto University of Advanced Science and a Student Club in Dhaka now organizing its own campus event.

How to Make a WordPress Chart With AI for Free

You have the number. You just need a good way to show it. It might be sitting in a PDF, buried in a spreadsheet, or somewhere in your notes. Turning it into a clean, useful chart can feel like more work than it should. We built an AI chart builder into Visualizer to close that… The post How to Make a WordPress Chart With AI for Free appeared first on Themeisle Blog.

How to Build a WordPress Job Board With RSS Feeds (2026)

Turn curated job feeds into a self-updating WordPress job board. Pick your sources, let Feedzy import new openings as posts, and watch your niche board fill up. The post How to Build a WordPress Job Board With RSS Feeds (2026) appeared first on Themeisle Blog.