WordCamp San Antonio Going Forward with Virtual and Live Components

Dear WordCampers,

We have great news! WordCamp San Antonio 2020 is happening on schedule, March 28-29, 2020 at UTSA Downtown! With coordination from our awesome team, our speakers, our vendors and venue, and WordCamp Central, we have come up with a solution that will allow our local community to meet in-person while also ensuring remote participants get to be involved without having to travel.


“How?” you ask? We will have live speakers at UTSA Downtown and will have a live audience, but will also have remote speakers and all three tracks will be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in-person. The best news? WordCamp Central is helping us present the livestream component for free! You will need to register, but there will not be a charge. We’ll let you know when we have registration set up.

Remote participants will be able to ask questions of our speakers and our speakers will continue the conversation on Twitter if needed. Our live audience will also be able to ask questions of our remote speakers. (Details on how this will all work have not been worked out in full yet, but we are confident it can all be done.)

We know this is a hard time for conferences which are having to make some hard decisions and this type of solution will not be the right one for every one. We are able to do this because:

  • WordCamp San Antonio is primarily a local event—most attendees will not need to travel
  • NOWCastSA, which was already contracted to video the event, is fully on-board and working with us to make this happen
  • The event is being held on a university campus, giving us access to resources others might not have.

If you already purchased an in-person ticket and wish to attend remotely, you may request a refund for your purchase and then signup for the virtual ticket (or, if you want to donate your purchased ticket to help offset the costs of the virtual conference, just signup for the virtual component and let us know your ticket is a donation.)

We are excited to be able to go forward with WordCamp San Antonio 2020 and look forward to putting on a great event for everyone, whether you attend in-person or join us through your computer.  The schedule will be updated to indicate which speakers will be presenting remotely as those decisions are made.

Join us March 28-29, 2020 at UTSA Downtown for a unique WordCamp designed to work for everyone. You’ll be glad you did!

The WordCamp 2020 Team

Mentoring The Next Generation of WordPress Users

KidsCamp is not only an opportunity to share what we do with our children, but it is also the best place to teach your child how to create and publish content with WordPress. The Austin WordPress Meetup has been hosting KidsCamps since 2011. We’ve introduced kids to WordPress at official WordCamps, Scout meetings, and Boys and Girls Clubs.

Kids love the simple to use, intuitive WordPress interface to publish their thoughts and interest online. Some of our very first Campers have taken their early introduction to WordPress from a fun, interesting pastime to a livelihood that helped pay for college and the foundation of a successful career.

I think it is pretty safe to say that Annika’s first KidsCamp in 2015 was all about spending time with her Dad, Toyin. She enjoyed learning the types of things her Daddy did on his computers. She was full of questions that started with “How to.. and why.”  

One of our takeaways from that KidsCamp experience was it was easier for a child to learn WordPress with their parent’s help and continued encouragement. Our other takeaway was to ask our KidCamp participants to think about what they want to write about before camp so they are ready to start building their ideas into websites during class.

 During a WordPress KidsCamp, your child will learn WordPress basics, creating pages, creating and maintaining a blog, and building a site navigation structure. We will also discuss internet safety. As much as we enjoy teaching valuable technical tools, KidsCamp Coaches have noticed kids improve their writing and communication skills simply because they were eager to share their thoughts with others. Having their very own WordPress site gave them a sense of gravitas and offered them a new way to connect with others of like interests.

Learning the basics of WordPress can not only help prepare your child for today’s fast-changing tech environment, but it might also inspire an entrepreneurial venture or two.

Annika built her first client site in 2018. Last year she approached her Dad with a Dropshipping idea — AnyDay Books – notebooks with custom-designed covers. Annika and Toyin worked on the design together and developed a beta product, Last year Annika took delivery of her first books. With proof of concept, she and her Dad are onto their next step — to build Annika’s AnyDay branded dropshipped books into a business.

In 2019 Annika volunteered to be a training assistant for the DFW KidsCamp. She helped lead the KidsCamp Blogging Brainstorm Session, presented the Online Safety Guidelines, and acted as tech support for our Campers. Annika enjoyed working with the younger kids so much, she volunteered to help with the 2020 San Antonio KidsCamp.

For most of us, WordPress is a major part of professional lives. KidsCamp is a fun way to invite our kids into that community. KidsCamp is a way to give them not only an appreciation of what we are doing at our keyboards but show our kids all that is possible for them to accomplish with WordPress. The organizers of the 2020 San Antonio WordCamp hope to see you and your kids at WordCamp this year.