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Welcome to the Monthly Education Buzz Report, your go-to source for highlights and updates on the WordPress Campus Connect, WordPress Credits, and WordPress Student Club education initiatives within the WordPress community. This report aims to celebrate, promote, and inform individuals across the WordPress community and beyond about the diverse educational endeavors underway.
WordPress Campus Connect
September was the busiest month WordPress Campus Connect (WPCC) has had so far. WordCamp Central lists 13 Campus Connect events held during the month across India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Costa Rica, and Spain, plus the multi-week Surat and Ajmer series. Campus Connect now makes up 64 of the 138 community events on the 2026 calendar, more than any other format, according to the Community Events dashboard.
77
Completed Events
140
Participating Institutions
7800+
Students Reached
From campus to the WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. stage
WordPress Campus Connect Beenova opened on September 12 in Cartago, Costa Rica, with 52 students aged 17 to 24 from the Empléate program run by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security for young people in vulnerable conditions. Students heard talks from Sammy Arburola and Gianko, painted their own Wapuu, and created their WordPress accounts before the day ended. Sponsor HHC Academies covered the day and, with it, WordCamp tickets and transport for the whole cohort. Organizers were Sebastián Zúñiga, Sammy Arburola, and Gianko, supported by volunteer mentorsEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. Johazz, Gerardo Venegas, Juan Prendas, and Francisco Leiton.
A week later, WordCamp Costa Rica (September 18–19) sold out at 368 attendees, and at least 100 of them were Campus Connect students from Beenova and UCR Esparza. Stefanía Venegas, who placed second in the UCR Esparza project showcase in August, was one of the main speakers with “Your WordPress site is already generating data: learn how to read it.” @lornamurillo published the full recap of WordPress Campus Connect UCR Esparza, an event organized entirely by five female students from the University of Costa Rica.
Three events in one month in Gujarat
@chean200891 organized his first WPCC at OM Education Campus, Junagadh (September 7–8), the first WordPress event ever held in that city, where more than 90 students built their first websites. He followed it with Adani University, Ahmedabad (September 19), with 80+ students and seven faculty members, and Gyanmanjari Innovative University, Bhavnagar (September 28), which drew 150+ students and 15+ faculty and made the local newspaper.
Surat finished its first series, and the college asked for more
Organized across three colleges as three chapters, Aarambh at SSASIT (August 29), Udaan at VNSGU (September 12), and Pragati at TDEC (September 26), WPCC Surat 2026 closed with 470+ registrations and 300+ students attending, together with 20 to 25 faculty members who received certificates. The college has since asked for a dedicated faculty training session. Lead organizer Sajid Ansari worked with co-leads Alkesh Miyani, Priyanka Sida, Hardik Kukadiya, and Amitkumar Dudhat, with @webtechpooja as Event SupporterEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues..
A Coruña: one program leading into the next
At the Universidad de A Coruña (September 30), teachers Carlos Longarela and Ana Cirujano guided students through building their first site, and a former attendee of the Liceo La Paz Campus Connect returned to share her journey from WPCC into WordPress Credits. Liceo La Paz hosts a repeat Campus Connect on November 30.
Campus Connects held in September
Kolhapur, India: @makarand hosted 103 students at D.Y. Patil Agricultural and Technical University, Talasande, across two labs, with new facilitators Snehal Kashid and Ghansham Sutar teaching for the first time.
Ajmer, India:WordPress Campus Connect Ajmer 2026 kicked off on September 12th, bringing WordPress education to 241 students across three colleges in September. The workshops were held at RK Patni College, Government Mahila Engineering College (GWECA), and Star Infotech College.
WordPress Campus Connect – D.Y. Patil Agricultural and Technical University, TalasandeWordPress campus Connect – Star infotech collegeWordPress Campus Connect Banyumas 2026 (Vocational School)WordPress Campus Connect – Sukkur IBA UniversityWordPress campus Connect – Star infotech collegeWordPress Campus Connect – Adani University, AhmedabadWordPress Campus Connect – Gyanmanjari Innovative University, BhavnagarWordPress Campus Connect-St. Philomena College, PutturWordPress Connect at Government Mahila Engineering College (GWECA)WordPress Campus Connect – OM Education Campus, JunagadhWordPress Campus Connect BeenovaWordPress Campus Connect – VNSGU SuratWordCamp Costa Rica was buzzing with at least 100 students from Campus Connect Beenova and UCR EsparzaWordPress Campus Connect – RK Patni
Program updates
@piyopiyofox published Keeping WordPress Campus Connect true to its purpose, asking organizers to build events around what students do: create a WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ account, build a first site, make a first contribution. The handbook was updated to match.
She also proposed a WordCamp Education Sponsor Fund for Flagships, one fund to bring WPCC and WP Credits students to flagship WordCamps, piloting at WordCamp Asia 2027 with eight students.
@desrosj proposed identifying WPCC and WP Credits participants on WordPress.org profiles, including each participant’s mentorEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., so experienced contributors can spot and support newcomers.
September was the biggest intake month yet for WordPress Credits. As of the October 1 monthly snapshot, the program counts 45 partner institutions, 363 graduates (up 13 since mid-September), 522 WordPress sites created (up 28), and 459 first contributions made. The live dashboard shows 924 students joined to date across 17 countries, contributing to 15 WordPress teams, with an 88% graduation rate and 87% of graduates recommending the program.
New cohorts and partners
The #wpcredits channel filled with introductions all month, led by a large new cohort at Universidad Fidélitas in Costa Rica and joined by students from Italy, Bolivia, Spain, Bangladesh, and CUNY City Tech. Two firsts stand out: Colegio Universitario de Cartago started its first cohort with about 20 Big Data students, and high school students from Liceo Experimental Bilingüe José Figueres Ferrer are translating WordPress.org MetaMetaMeta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. into Costa Rican Spanish. Rowan University in the United States moved to the agreement stage, mapping Credits hours onto academic credit, with a first cohort planned for spring 2027, and UIN Banten became the second Indonesian institution to sign a Credits agreement.
From student to mentor
Atikur Rahman, who graduated from WP Credits earlier this year and leads the student club at Ahmad’s Education in Dhaka, is now a WP Credits mentor, supporting the 17-student cohort that started on September 21. New mentors also joined from Serbia, Romania, Spain, and Costa Rica. Program admin Rita Robles Loaiza won first place at the 18th Latin American Women in Computing Conference with a paper on WP Credits.
WordPress Credits Foundations, built by @celigaroe, replaces the original 150-hour course and is the first with autograding, so students earn their certificate the moment they finish instead of waiting for a manual review.
@piyopiyofox published The WordPress Facilitator Training Program, Five Months In, tracing the first complete outcome chain: @devmuhib’s online faculty workshop in Bangladesh led to a full WP Credits program at Ahmad’s Education, five graduates, and one graduate now leading the school’s student club and mentoring the next cohort. @webtechpooja conducted an in-person faculty workshop at Texas International College in Nepal, where 11 faculty members took part in a hands-on session with help from @regankhadgi. @webtechpooja is now program lead, and two courses are open to anyone who wants to teach WordPress: Leading WordPress Education Programs and AI Literacy through WordPress.
WordPress Student Clubs
@devmuhib published Proposal: Rethinking how Student Clubs actually run, the first full definition of a club’s lifecycle from application to offboarding, with a readiness checklist for institutions, a mentor for the first 60 days, an eight-indicator health score, and three paths for graduating club leaders. A baseline audit of all recognized clubs starts in October.
Other Happenings
The AI-Powered WordPress course is live on Learn WordPress: four modules, about nine hours, including a developer module.
WordPress Education offers three practical ways for learners to develop skills, gain practical experience, and build confidence as open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. contributors.
Welcome to the Monthly Education Buzz Report, your go-to source for highlights and updates on the WordPress Campus Connect, WordPress Credits, and WordPress Student Club education initiatives within the WordPress community. This report aims to celebrate, promote, and inform individuals across the WordPress community and beyond about the diverse educational endeavors underway.
WordPress Campus Connect
WordPress Campus Connect (WPCC) had campuses reporting in from three countries this month, with one event drawing attention well beyond the WordPress community itself.
WPCC Perpus Soetta, held at the public library in Tegal, Indonesia, on August 9, organized by Kharis Sulistiyono (@kharisulistiyo). One participant built her first website using only her right hand after an arm injury, a moment organizers called one of the most inspiring of the year. The event went on to earn coverage from five local news outlets, including Puskapik and Times Indonesia.
WordPress Campus Connect Kolhapur opened its second season on August 29 at KIT’s College of Engineering, Kolhapur, India, organized by Makarand Mane (@mkrndmane). More than 100 students attended the hands-on workshop and built their first WordPress websites.
WordPress Campus Connect at IIM Udaipur and Pacific Udaipur, India, on August 31, organized by Niha Khan (@dr_niha_khan). More than 140 students took part in what she described as the first Campus Connect held in Rajasthan.
WordPress Campus Connect Surat kicked off its multi-campus series with a session at SSASIT on August 29, organized by Alkesh Miyani (@alkesh7) and the WordPress Surat Community. Two more campuses, VNSGU and TDEC, are scheduled to follow in September.
Two more events are in the works. St Philomena College (Autonomous) in Puttur, India, submitted its application on August 19, with organizers also hoping to start a WordPress Student Club on campus once the event is confirmed. And WPCC Sukkur IBA University in Pakistan is scheduled for September 7 after a wave of interest pushed expected attendance well past the original estimate, prompting organizer Jamshed Ali to ask the community for advice on scaling logistics and budget for a much larger crowd. If you’d like to help plan an event like these, join the conversation in #campusconnect on the Make WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.
WordPress Credits enters September at 42 partner institutions across 16 countries and 91 active mentorsEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., with 191 students currently working on contribution projects and 352 graduates in total. August was by far the program’s biggest graduation month yet: 145 students completed their internship in a single month, close to 40 percent of every graduate the program has produced since it began. The completion queue is essentially clear, with just three students in pending review.
The team also launched wordpresseducation.org, a shared dashboard for mentors and students that replaces the old process of handing each mentorEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. an individually filtered, password-protected spreadsheet view. Mentors got access in late August, giving them one place to see their students, meeting notes, and reports instead of piecing it together by hand. CUNY City Tech, the program’s first partnership with a US public university system, became the first partner to run the new WordPress Credits Developer Track, with 12 students starting the track this month.
WordPress Credits also had its first Education Table at a WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US Contributor DayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/, held in Phoenix from August 16 to 19 alongside Campus Connect, Student Club, Faculty Training, and the AI Literacy through WordPress course. The table’s call for US-based mentors turned up Corey Hall (@coreyhall93), a community team contributor from South Carolina who joined as a mentor shortly after. Separately, Destiny Kanno opened a discussion on August 14 about what comes after WordPress Credits, looking at how a graduate retention path might work now that the program has added 150 graduates in just two months.
New cohorts kept arriving throughout August. Kishoreganj Polytechnic Institute in Bangladesh, confirmed as a partner in July, sent its first Credits students this month, most heading into Polyglots translation work. Students from Liceo Experimental Bilingüe José Figueres Ferrer in Costa Rica continued onboarding into the Costa Rican Spanish translation pilot Rita Robles Loaiza wrote up in July, while a wave of students from Universidad Fidélitas wrapped up their own internships, several contributing to the WordPress Photo Directory. Gabriel Loayza (@gabrielloayza) published eight original photographs documenting public high schools in Costa Rica, and Evelyn Masís Guillén published 38 photographs of heritage architecture in Cartago and San José, both with full accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) metadata. Elsewhere, Bangladesh Credits graduate Atikur Rahman (@atikur_rahman) completed a Bangla translation of a WordPress Credits course lesson, making the material easier to reach for future students in the region. Looking ahead, 52 students are now past their scheduled end date and awaiting final review, with another 130 due to finish between now and December, worth watching so the queue the program just cleared doesn’t build back up.
WordPress Facilitator Training Program
The WordPress Facilitator Training Program prepares people to teach WordPress topics through self-guided courses on Learn WordPress and facilitation guides for running two- or three-day workshops. In August, Pooja Derashri (@webtechpooja) shared a recap of the program’s first official in-person workshop, held in July at D. Y. Patil School of Engineering and Management.
More than 20 faculty members attended the two-day pilot and built their first personal WordPress sites, while getting a full walkthrough of Campus Connect, WordPress Credits, Student Club, and Credentials so they can help run these programs on campus going forward. Derashri also ran a separate WordPress Credits session for students, and had what she described as productive conversations with the school’s HOD, Dean, and Vice Chancellor about bringing WordPress into the curriculum and possibly into the formal grading system through WordPress Credits. She credited Snehal Kashid (@snehal5774) and Makarand Mane (@mkrndmane) for helping the workshop run smoothly.
WordPress Student Clubs
The WordPress Student Club at Ahmad’s Education in Dhaka, Bangladesh, kept up its momentum this month. On August 4, organizer Atikur Rahman hosted a meetupMeetupMeetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. where mentor Muhibul Haque (@devmuhib) introduced members to WordPress Credits, and the group is now preparing both to enroll in the course and to host its own Campus Connect event.
Get Involved
Education Initiatives
WordPress Education offers three practical ways for learners to develop skills, gain practical experience, and build confidence as open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. contributors.
Welcome to the Monthly Education Buzz Report, your go-to source for highlights and updates on the WordPress Campus Connect, WordPress Credits, and WordPress Student Club education initiatives within the WordPress community. This report aims to celebrate, promote, and inform individuals across the WordPress community and beyond about the diverse educational endeavors underway.
WordPress Campus Connect
WordPress Campus Connect (WPCC) kept up a steady pace in June. The program has now completed 30 events in 2026 and 50 since it launched, reaching 6,343 students in total. Nine more events are on the calendar, and another 40 are moving through setup and planning. If you’d like to help shape one of those, join the conversation in #campusconnect on the Make WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.
Four campuses held sessions during the month:
WordPress Campus Connect Cumilla 2026 at Comilla Victoria Government College, Bangladesh, organized by Asiful Islam Sohag with mentorEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. Muhibul Haque (@devmuhib). It was the second Campus Connect event held in the city, covering the WordPress ecosystem, building a career with WordPress, and why the global community matters, with students creating their first WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ accounts during the session.
WordPress Campus Connect at Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto (UMP) in Purwokerto, Indonesia, on June 5, organized by Tri Hadianto with facilitators Supriyanto Soep and Arief Burhanuddin (@surip) from the Banyumas WordPress Community, and recapped by Devin Maeztri (@devinmaeztri). The session on building portfolios and careers with WordPress came with free .blog domains and hosting for attendees through the WordPress Education Initiative.
WordPress Campus Connect at Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University (HSTU) in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, on June 11. A full recap of the event hasn’t been published yet, so look for more detail in a future report.
WordPress Campus Connect at Institut Teknologi Tangerang Selatan (ITTS) in Tangerang Selatan, Indonesia, on June 18, led by organizer Taufik Iqbal Ramdhani and a team of student volunteers. The event ran four sessions covering WordPress fundamentals, AI-assisted blogging, career paths, and Full Site Editing portfolio building.
The Cumilla event was a personal one for Sohag, who organized it in his hometown. “Cumilla is my city, and seeing students here get genuinely curious about WordPress — it’s hard to put into words,” he said, describing how students asked questions that went well beyond the basics: how to get started, where to contribute, and how open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. actually works. He’s already preparing a second campus as part of WordPress Campus Connect Cumilla 2026, with plans for more universities and more students to follow.
Indonesia had its own milestone this month, too. Universitas Ciputra Surabaya hosted its first-ever Campus Connect event on May 22, and organizers shared the recap in June. “From Zero to Digital Hero” drew 76 registrations and 55 checked-in attendees for an afternoon of WordPress Fundamentals, Full Site Editing, and GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/BlockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor sessions, capped off with a mini website design competition. A seven-person organizing team led by indramaryati (@indramaryati) and Salman Alfarisi put the event together with six speakers and facilitators.
On the operations side, the community team deployedDeployLaunching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. the automated first-pass vetting system for new Campus Connect applications this month, building on the plan Rocío Valdivia (@_dorsvenabili) and Isotta Peira (@peiraisotta) outlined in May. New applications are now sorted into a simplified set of statuses and get an initial automated review before a human takes over, which should mean faster turnaround for organizers applying to host an event.
WPCC Universitas Muhammadiyah PurwokertoWPCC Universitas Muhammadiyah PurwokertoWPCC Comilla Victoria Government CollegeWPCC Comilla Victoria Government CollegeWPCC Comilla Victoria Government CollegeWPCC Universitas Ciputra Surabaya
WordPress Credits
WordPress Credits closed out the first half of the year with real growth. The program now counts 83 active mentorsEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. and 28 partner institutions, up from eight when the year began, with 275 students actively working on contribution projects and 199 graduates to date. That growth touched every part of the program in June, from a first high school partnership to a new leadership structure for mentors.
The program welcomed its first high school this month. Rita Robles Loaiza (@roblesloaiza) shared that Liceo HHC Experimental Bilingüe José Figueres Ferrer in Cartago, Costa Rica, launched a pilot with 13 tenth-grade students, who are using WordPress Credits to complete their community service requirement before graduation.
Mariano Sarmiento (@marianosarmiento) also gave an update on his pilot pairing students with a nonprofit. Working with Economistas sin Fronteras and UDIT, the students completed onboarding and the Beginner WordPress User course, then took on their first real case with Odón Solar. After a co-creation session to map out the client’s goals, audiences, and needs, the students are now turning that research into the site’s first UXUXUX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. structure, with Sarmiento mentoring along the way. The plan is to document the process closely enough that it can be repeated as a model for future pilots.
The team also updated the 150-hour WordPress Credits course this month and is finishing updates to the 50-hour course. Students partway through a lesson won’t lose progress, though some may notice small changes to the content. Alongside that, a new Regional/Country Mentor Lead role is rolling out across the mentor structure, giving experienced mentors a way to lead recruitment, onboarding, and institutional partnerships within their own region or country.
WordPress Credits also had a strong showing at WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe 2026 in Kraków. The event hosted its first dedicated Education Track and Education Table, where students from Kraków University of Technology, Kraków University of Economics, and VIII LO high school presented projects, including WapuuGo, a gamified WordPress learning platform for younger students. At the Contributor DayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ Education Table, 21 contributors took part, three people applied to become mentors, and two institutions—Haaga-Helia University and SAE Creative Media Education—applied to join the program. Kraków University of Technology also formally recognized Matt Mullenweg during the event. That momentum builds on an earlier look at WordPress education in Poland, where universities and secondary schools alike are using the program for hands-on open source contribution.
Isotta Peira (@peiraisotta) wrapped up the first half of the year with a mid-year update on WordPress Credits, covering plans for a public program dashboard, new ways for students to contribute beyond the current course structure, and a more formal graduate retention program.
Finally, @annezazu will be sharing updates on the upcoming WordPress 7.1 release with students so that they can shadow the experience.
WordPress Student Clubs
A WordPress Student Club held its Introduction to WordPress workshop this month, organized by Lorna Murillo. The session covered what WordPress is, how it’s used to build websites, and foundational concepts like domains, hosting, and user management, along with a tour of the WordPress dashboard. Murillo said the turnout and curiosity from participants was a strong start, with more sessions planned as the club looks to keep the momentum going.
Other Happenings
WordPress Credits, WordPress Campus Connect, and WordPress Student Clubs got some outside attention this month, too. On the WP Tavern podcast, Destiny Kanno, Anand Upadhyay, and Maciej Pilarski talked through how the three programs work together to build a complete education ecosystem within WordPress, from a student’s first workshop through to becoming an active contributor.
WordCampWordCampWordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Europe 2026 in Kraków marked a significant milestone for WordPress Educational Initiatives. For the first time ever, WCEUWCEUWordCamp Europe. The European flagship WordCamp event. featured a dedicated Education Table at the Contributor DayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ and Education Track, bringing together students, mentorsEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., educators, and institutional partners to explore what it truly means to learn, teach, and contribute through WordPress.
But this wasn’t just about building websites.
A New Kind of Learning
The long-term health of the project depends on something less visible than market share: a steady, growing community of contributors who understand open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL., care about its values, and have the skills to move it forward. That’s what WordPress educational initiatives are really about, and the direction of WordPress education has evolved to. Today, students aren’t just learning how to install a theme or configure a pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.. They are developing critical thinking, collaborative skills, and real-world project experience using open source tools. They are discovering how to contribute back to a global community. They are learning what it means to be part of something bigger than a grade.
Growing the next generation of contributors isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s essential to the sustainable future of WordPress as an open source project. The WordPress Credits Program, Campus Connect, and other education programs exist to create that pipeline, connecting universities, educators, and students directly with the contributor community, often for the first time. WordCamp Europe 2026 in Kraków was a significant milestone for these initiatives. Taking place in a city where we’ve been building genuine, long-term partnerships with universities and technical schools.
Student Showcase: Real Projects, Real Skills
One of the highlights of the Education Track was the Student Showcase, featuring work from students at Kraków University of Technology, Kraków University of Economics, and VIII LO high school. These weren’t toy projects. Students presented work developed over a full semester, demonstrating how they incorporated WordPress into advanced, professional-grade workflows.
The standout project was WapuuGo — a gamified WordPress learning platform designed for children aged 10 to 14. Students create blogs, share their work with peers, earn badges, and unlock custom Wapuu characters as they progress through the curriculum. The platform includes dedicated areas for teachers and parents, and it’s built entirely on WordPress. It’s a creative, thoughtful project that demonstrates just how versatile the platform can be when students approach it as a tool for solving real problems rather than just a CMS to learn.
What made it stand out was the approach: students weren’t just told to “make a website.” They were challenged to use WordPress as a tool to solve real problems, build creative projects, and reflect on how open source technology integrates into modern work, bring ideas to life, and create things with purpose.
Big shoutout to @tadamarketing, Joanna Micek, and @twloczkowski, who were the project leads for the student groups.
What It Really Means to Be Part of the WP Credits Program
The WordPress Credits Program is often misunderstood as purely technical or contributor-focused. In reality, it is a bridge between business, education, and open source community values.
@organvlasti, a WordPress Credits mentorEvent SupporterEvent Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., took to the stage to break down what participation in the program actually looks like from a business and mentorship perspective. She shared how companies can support educational initiatives in a meaningful way, and featured a student whose path was shaped by that collaboration.
This talk is a must-watch for anyone considering institutional or business involvement in WordPress education.
A highlight from our university partnerships
A reflection of how deeply we collaborate with local educational institutions came in the form of a talk by @dannykrk of Kraków University of Technology. In “The New Engineer: Psychology, Systems, and Open Source,” Daniel explored how the role of the engineer is evolving, and the place open source communities play in shaping that. It’s a thought-provoking contribution from a partner who has become a real part of this community.
A recognition from Kraków University of Technology
One of the most meaningful moments of WCEU 2026 happened on the main stage at the beginning of Fireside Chat & Q&A. Kraków University of Technology presented a formal institutional recognition to @matt, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, in acknowledgment of his contributions to open source, education, and the open web. The award was presented by Natalia Ryłko on behalf of the university, and accepted by @4thhubbard in Matt’s name.
The letter from Rector Professor Andrzej Szarata expressed the university’s alignment with the values WordPress has long stood for: that knowledge should be shared, that technology should serve society, and that a university’s responsibility extends beyond its own walls. It also acknowledged the collaboration already underway between Kraków University of Technology, the WordPress FoundationWordPress FoundationThe WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org., and the broader WordPress community, pointing to student projects presented at WCEU as a tangible result of that partnership.
It’s a moment that speaks to something larger. When a major technical university formally recognizes the impact of an open source project and its educational initiatives, it signals that this work is being taken seriously at an institutional level. That kind of validation opens doors, and we look forward to building on it.
The event started strong on July 4th, 2026 at the WCEU Contributor Day, where the Education Table brought together one of the most engaged and diverse groups of the day.
It opened with introductions and a simple but powerful framing: What’s your background? What’s your campus or education experience? From there, the group moved into open brainstorming and discussion, and contributions came from two perspectives: students and mentors on one side, and institution representatives on the other.
What Students and Mentors Brought Up
The student and mentor group generated rich feedback and ideas, including:
Creating a new fellowship model for mentors, enabling them to prototype and design solutions for their own institutions (new programs, communication campaigns, internal platforms)
Adding a Human-Centered Design (HCD) module to the course to foster creative and solutions-oriented thinking
Building a contribution wizard tool directly into the course to help students navigate where they can get involved
Creating a contribution or project dashboard so students can clearly see open tasks and needs
Addressing the confusion between WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ and WordPress.comWordPress.comAn online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ in the course curriculum, which currently leads to disorientation
Dividing the course into technical and non-technical tracks to better serve different audiences
Improving language clarity throughout course materials and documentation
Institution reps came with strategic and structural thinking:
Developing an elevator pitch presentation specifically designed to help universities understand and join the program
Defining clear next steps for students after graduation, including the concept of a WPCredits Alumni Club
Framing contributions as a genuine career path, not just a classroom exercise
Making the course available in multiple languages
Encouraging participating institutions to collaborate with each other, rather than working in silos
Creating a mini-grant program, co-funded with institutions, to sponsor student projects
Introducing modern, relevant tools to the curriculum (for example, exploring an education partnership with Figma)
Developing audience-specific courses and certifications: WordPress for Business Owners, for Designers, for Project Managers, and so on
A Broader Request
One idea that surfaced from multiple directions: move Education to the WordPress.org main menu. It’s a small change with a big symbolic and practical impact, signaling that education is a first-class part of the WordPress ecosystem.
Also running on Contributor Day was Akademia WordPressa, a beginner-focused workshop initiative organized by the local Polish WordPress community. For the first time in WCEU history, the event included dedicated hands-on workshops for people who had never used WordPress before.
The concept originated at WordCamp Kraków 2024 and made its WCEU debut this year, with a four-hour curriculum running entirely in Polish and aimed at the local community. Participants built their first website from scratch using WordPress Playground, learned to work with the blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor, explored how AI tools can assist in content creation and site planning, and then found and fixed intentional accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) and SEO errors in their own sites as a practical learning exercise. No coding required, no prior experience needed.
The session accommodated 40 participants, and all materials including the agenda, site project, exercise list, and facilitator notes are being published after the event so future organizers can freely adapt, translate, and reuse them.
This is exactly the spirit the Education initiatives are trying to scale. A community-led, low-barrier entry point into WordPress and open source, built by people who care about bringing new voices into the ecosystem. A dedicated post about the Akademia is coming soon, with a deeper look at the format, how it ran, and how other communities can pick it up and run it at their own events.
The hope is that Akademia WordPressa grows into a fixture at flagship WordPress events worldwide.
Sponsoring Students Is Investing in the Future of WordPress
Five students from the WordPress Credits Program attended WCEU 2026 in Kraków, representing Latvia, Italy, and Spain. Their participation was made possible by company sponsorships specifically dedicated to bringing WordPress Credits students to the event.
During the conference, those students had the chance to meet in person with the companies that sponsored their trips. That kind of connection matters. Students see firsthand what it looks like when a business genuinely invests in open source education. Companies meet the people their support made it possible for to be there.
What’s just as important: these students weren’t passive attendees. They volunteered at the event and attended the Contributor Day, contributing alongside the broader community. They came as sponsored participants and left as contributors.
This is worth naming as an open opportunity. Sponsoring a WordPress Credits student’s travel to a flagship event like WCEU is a concrete, meaningful way for a company to invest in WordPress education. It creates a direct connection between a business and a student at a formative moment, and it contributes to the contributor pipeline that the project depends on.
Looking Ahead
WCEU 2026 in Kraków was proof that WordPress education is growing up. The first-ever Education Track, a packed Contributor Day Table, and new institutional partnerships forming all point to a community that is taking education seriously.
The next step is to follow up with the mentors, institutional representatives, and supporters who contributed ideas during the Contributor Day Education Table. The session generated a rich list of proposals, from fellowship models and contribution dashboards to multilingual course materials and alumni pathways. Those conversations don’t stop when the event ends. I’ll be working through the ideas raised, engaging the people who raised them, and turning the most actionable ones into concrete next steps for the program.
The work continues. If you are a WordCamp organizer, university, educator, mentor, or student interested in getting involved with WordPress Educational Initiatives, WordPress Credits or Campus Connect, reach out. There is a place for you here.
