What is WP Campus Connect?

Devin:
Hello, Pooja and Anand. How are you doing? How are you feeling today?

Pooja:
I’m great. I’m feeling on top of the world right now.

Devin:
Right? That’s awesome. What about you, Anand? I hope I got your name right this time.

Anand:
Yeah, that’s right. Pooja has trained you well.

Devin:
Exactly. Pooja reminded me the other day. It’s Anand. So yeah, I’m so pleased to be here with both of you. Today, we’re going to talk about your recent project, and I think your project can be considered one of the most successful. It’s small, it’s intimate, but it’s resourceful, and it has a huge impact. So let’s talk about it so that more people in our community are inspired and want to try to experiment with something like what you’re doing.

That’s what we like in the WordPress community—sharing what we can do together. If it’s a good thing, they can replicate it, improve it, or just get inspiration to try to do something similar.

Today, we’re going to talk about WordPress Campus Connect—WP Campus Connect—that recently took place in Ajmer, India. So, Pooja and Anand will be able to talk more about Ajmer as a city: where Ajmer is in India, how big the community is, and what’s the story behind Ajmer. But let’s start with introducing yourselves, Anand and Pooja. Let us know a bit about what you’re doing, what keeps you busy every day, what sort of WordPress work and magic you do to this world. Go ahead. Probably Anand, you can start first.

Anand:
Yeah, so hello everyone. My name is Anand. I am from Ajmer, as Devin has already told you, and I’m running a WordPress plugin development company here called WPVibes. And me and Pooja both co-founded this company a few years back.

So our main involvement in WordPress is one of the main businesses that we are running, which is all based on WordPress. So that’s how we are initially connected with the WordPress community. And as part of the community work, I’m also colonizing the Ajmer WordPress Meetup chapter and also regularly conducting meetups. Getting involved in the WordCamps is something that I love to connect more and more people, and that’s what I do.

Devin:
And are you part of any organizing team after Ajmer or is there something that we want to know as well?

Anand:
I was saving it for the end, but we can share it now as well.

Devin:
You can mention it now. Yeah, just mention what keeps you busy in the WordPress community.

Anand:
So if you’re talking about right now, I am more busy with being a part of WordCamp India 2025 organizing team. I’m in the Attendee Experience Team, and the most exciting thing we are doing there is taking care of all the parties during the event. So that’s keeping me busy a lot these days apart from my work.

Devin:
Thanks, Anand. Again, let’s hear from Pooja.

Pooja:
Hello everyone. My name is Pooja and I’m a WordPress regular and active contributor. As Anand told, I co-founded WPVibes, a plugin development company along with him. And we are based in India, but we work across the globe, as many of the WordPress community also introduced me to lots of trends that we can work along with and chit-chat along with them.

Apart from this, I’m also co-organizing WordCamp Asia 2025 as part of the Sponsors Team, and we also work together there.

Devin:
So Pooja and I were in the same Sponsors Team at WordCamp Asia 2025. Thanks, Anand and Pooja. You mentioned that you are actually co-organizers of the WordPress community in Ajmer. How big is the community? How often do you meet in Ajmer?

Anand:
So if you talk about how big the community is, if you had asked me this question a couple of months back, I would’ve said it’s very small. But the recent event that we are going to talk about now has made a big impact, and now our community is growing.

A couple of months back, whenever we organized a meetup, we never got beyond 15 attendees. Maybe RSVP numbers were big, but the final attendee count was never more than 15. The biggest number we received otherwise was just seven to eight people.

But if I talk about the last Sunday meetup that we organized, we got 52 attendees.

Devin:
Wow.

Anand:
Yeah, there were 70+ RSVPs, but 52 attended. So it was a much bigger number, and most of them enjoyed the meetup and committed towards making it to us. They even forced us to keep these kinds of sessions going on so that we could have regular meetups. They also suggested session ideas to us—what kind of sessions they want and what kind of meetup topics they want.

So the current state of the community is growing exponentially, I would say.

Devin:
Wow. And thanks to the event WP Campus Connect.

Anand:
Yeah, thanks to the event. It’s all because of that.

Devin:
Alright, so that should be motivation for folks in probably smaller communities. This could be one of the approaches that they take to grow the community and their meetup group, at least. Pooja, I remember since we were probably working and talking about the NextGen Project, when the Community Team had the NextGen Project last year, 2023, you already came up with this idea of, “Probably we’re not going to do a big event like WordCamp. Probably it’s going to be like a workshop or something smaller—50 people.” And then not until this year, that discussion, you kept going and exploring and molding. Not until this year, it happened, it got materialized. And it’s called WP Campus Connect.

I know you mentioned that Anand is the person behind this, but I think both of you have enriched each other’s ideas. But tell us, what’s the primary force—the driving force—behind WP Campus Connect?

Pooja:
Actually, we founded this community in Ajmer back in 2017. For three years, it was smooth. We were like 10 to 15 members attending our meetup, and we were happy at that time. We wanted to grow, but we were happy with the small growth. But when the pandemic occurred, everything stopped, and we were thinking, “Now we are not going to grow our community. How can we?”

Online meetups were there, but that was not what we wanted. So, at that time, Anand came up with the idea: “What if we touch the students? What if we do workshops for beginners or students? They will learn about WordPress, and they can choose WordPress as their career.”

So we brainstormed our idea and discussed this with a few people in the community and got their response, their feedback, and modified accordingly. Then we finally started talking about it in public. We wanted to do something, this is how we can proceed with ideas and other suggestions. And finally, I also discussed this idea with you because in Pune last year, they did some experiments with workshops.

So I thought it would be great to have some feedback or ideas from them. The initial challenge was to convince the colleges. Colleges were not aware of what WordPress is, and they weren’t ready to have this kind of workshop because they didn’t understand it. But we tried to convince them.

When I discussed this idea with you last year, your feedback was very positive. You always encouraged me to just go for it. “Don’t think much, just go for it. Start, and you will have support from the community.” And that’s what happened. Actually, I started, and we got so much love from the community. We got support from sponsors, everybody supported our idea. With their feedback, their money, and their guidance, there were always people around us.

Devin:
Including Do the Woo, right? Do the Woo is also part of the sponsors.

Anand:
Yeah.

Pooja:
Do the Woo was also, I must say, one of the first. When we were starting to talk about sponsorship, I reached out to a few people, and Do the Woo—Bob W—was one of the first people I approached for sponsorship. And he said, “Oh, I like the idea, but I need to check my budget.”

And I thought, “Let’s not put a burden on your pocket. It’s a small-budget event.” And once I sent my proposal to him, emailed him, in just five minutes, he said, “Yes, count me in. I’m one of the sponsors.” That kind of love and support we received from our community was overwhelming.

Devin:
So I see that your event has proven the idea that to have a meaningful and impactful event, it doesn’t have to be big, it doesn’t have to be resource-intensive. It’s all about strategy, intention, and how you put your mind and heart into what you want to achieve.

Talking about what you wanted to achieve, Pooja mentioned Anand as the person behind the idea of targeting students. In particular, we’re talking about events targeting students, but specifically campuses. Your idea was, instead of organizing an event where people come, you actually go to them. So, what was the reason behind it? What did you have in mind when you decided, “You know what? We’re going to do it differently; we are going to go to them now”?

Pooja mentioned it’s not easy convincing them, so tell us more about that. What did you do to convince them? How did they finally say, “Yes, I want to be part of your event”? Can you share more about that?

Anand:
Yeah, so we wanted to, just as Pooja said, from the past two to three years, we were thinking about having workshops because we wanted to grow the community.

If you check the Community Handbook for Meetups, there’s a line that says, “Anywhere where two or more people are sitting and talking about WordPress can be a WordPress meetup.” That’s right. We were doing that—seven to eight people—but that’s not the goal for which I started the local community.

We wanted to grow awareness about WordPress and add more members to the WordPress community. The challenge in growing the community here is that we don’t have a lot of companies doing work in WordPress. And those who are doing it aren’t much involved in the community. So we couldn’t grow in that direction.

So we thought about what other direction we could take to grow the community. That’s where we recognized that there are a lot of students in our city and a lot of colleges offering IT courses, graduation, and post-graduate courses in computer science and IT.

So we decided to reach out to them. A couple of years back, we did some workshops. We approached those colleges, but we only did a seminar—not a workshop. The response wasn’t that positive because the colleges forced all the students to come to the session. Some students were interested, some were not. It created a mess.

So, this time, we wanted to do something very systematic and planned. We approached colleges with this idea. We told them, “We want to organize this event in your college as part of a bigger event. This will decrease the friction for students—they don’t have to travel. It’s in their college during their regular schedule.”

Anand:
So with this idea in mind, we started approaching the colleges with the idea. Again, the college administration or the IT department was not much involved in WordPress, so we had to first clear that barrier. We had to convince them that this is something very important for their students, for their college, and for their students’ careers.

It can give a lot of career opportunities to them. So, to convince them, I prepared a complete presentation about WordPress—what WordPress is, listing out many popular websites from India and abroad that are built on WordPress, and explaining other community events that we are involved in so that they could also understand that we are part of a big community and that we were bringing something from the community to them.

This is how we approached and pitched them. Another thing we did was try to find the right contact in the college. Without that, we couldn’t do it. We had to find the decision-making authority. Once we convinced that one person, they could say okay, and we could go ahead.

Devin:
So who were they? The head of the school or the head of the finance department?

Anand:
No, in some colleges, we approached the Head of the Department (HOD). In some colleges, we approached the principal directly. We found some contacts with the principal because if we just went in as strangers and pitched the idea, they might not get interested. So, we tried to find a direct contact person, some kind of connection that we could use, and then we went through that channel to convince them. Not everywhere were we successful. We also faced rejections.

Devin:
So how many schools or colleges did you go to? Because I remember the idea was to run the event over one month, with one college every week. I assume you didn’t just go to these four. At the moment, I’m looking at your website, and I see four partner colleges. I assume you didn’t just go to these four and get a yes from all of them. You probably approached more, right?

Anand:
Yeah, we approached six colleges.

Devin:
How many?

Anand:
We approached six colleges.

Devin:
Six colleges, and you managed to get approval from four?

Anand:
Yes, from these four.

Devin:
But what do you think made them say yes? What’s your gut feeling?

Anand:
We just pitched them the idea of how big the WordPress market is, what the career opportunities are, and especially the diverse career opportunities.

Not all students might be interested in programming. They might have taken admission, and they’re learning programming, but they’re not necessarily interested in it. We showed them that WordPress has something for everyone—programmers, content writers, SEO specialists, designers. If they have knowledge about WordPress, they’ll have an edge in the market.

We also showed them pictures of WordCamps, which helped a lot. We showed them that such big events happen in this industry. That was part of my presentation. I also explained that there’s no awareness about WordPress, and if there were, we wouldn’t need to approach them.

This way, we tried to convince them, and yes, they agreed.

Pooja:
One more thing I want to add. I agree with what Anand said, but one more thing that helped us is that this was officially approved by the WordPress Foundation. This helped us a lot because we always said, “This is an official WordPress-approved event. We have the official website, everything is official, and the WordPress logo is in place.” That really helped convince them.

Anand:
Yes, having an official event from a bigger organization gave credibility to our event. Earlier, when we approached colleges as individuals, we didn’t get that kind of response. Having this kind of credibility really helped.

Devin:
That’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it, right? You must be happy with the results. But let us know about these colleges, Pooja. Who are they? Just to give an idea to our friends listening now, so they can better target the kind of colleges and majors that might be interested in allowing students to attend events like this.

Pooja:
Yeah. First, when we had this idea, we prepared a list of colleges offering courses like engineering, Bachelor of Computer Science, and Master of Computer Applications. We targeted colleges that provide courses related to computer science.

Programming and WordPress are often chosen by students studying in technical colleges or doing engineering or technical education. So, we first targeted students in these areas.

Devin:
So they’re at the university level?

Pooja:
Yes.

Devin:
Not high school level? And I see there’s Sophia Girls’ College. Is this a girls-only college?

Pooja:
Yes. All the other colleges are co-educational, but Sophia is exclusively for girls.

Devin:
And how was the response there? Were they enthusiastic? I remember you targeted 70 to 100 participants per school. How many students joined from each of these colleges?

Pooja:
It’s interesting. We targeted 70 to 100 students. In the three co-educational colleges, we had both male and female students, and our attendance ranged from 70 to 80 participants. But at Sophia College, there was 100% attendance—100 girls participated. The best part is that Sophia College is now one of our venue sponsors for upcoming meetups.

Devin:
Oh, nice! So you were able to convince them to support your meetup group as well. That’s great. I’d be thrilled to have such a long-term commitment from these colleges, making them part of the WordPress ecosystem. Congratulations!

Pooja:
I must say, girls are more energetic and eager to learn. They also wanted to be part of our community and volunteer.

Devin:
That’s amazing. It sounds like there’s going to be another community event in 2025 in Ajmer.

Anand:
Yes, sure.

Devin:
From the sound of it, there’s going to be another big event in 2025.

Pooja:
Definitely, but this time not just with five to 10 people. We’re going to involve college students as volunteers and organizers too.

Devin:
Of course. I hope BITS Engineering College Ajmer and Aryan College Ajmer, who might be listening to our discussion today, will also volunteer to donate their venue for Ajmer meetup community events. That way, they can take turns and support students to volunteer and get involved in the local WordPress community. Wow, that’s really good.

Speaker 1:
We’re glad. It’s the easiest way to translate your WordPress site or WooCommerce shop. And as an official partner of Woo, you will find them on the Woo Marketplace. Their extension is easy to install, built for maximum compatibility, and optimized for SEO. Once it’s in place, it will help your clients increase their shop’s visibility, reduce bounce rates, enhance user experience, localize media assets, and boost their content with AI. Just visit woocommerce.com and find them in their marketplace or at WPML.org.

Devin:
So, were there any interesting things that happened, other than what you mentioned about the girls being more enthusiastic and having 100% attendance at Sophia’s? What are some of the other fun things that happened during your event? This was a month-long event, right? Did anything unexpected or cool happen?

Anand:
Yeah, a lot of things happened apart from the workshops. Initially, when we got our event approval, we only mentioned that we would conduct four workshops. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened.

When we started pitching to the colleges, we received feedback that the students didn’t know anything about WordPress. If we asked them to just sit in a workshop and start doing something, they wouldn’t be motivated enough because they didn’t know anything.

Devin:
Oh, so the principal gave you this feedback?

Anand:
Yeah, the first college we approached told us that if we asked students to just sit in the computer lab and start building something without any background knowledge, they wouldn’t be motivated enough.

Devin:
So, what did you do? It sounds like you customized the workshops for each college.

Anand:
Not for every college, but we adapted based on this feedback. We decided to have a pre-event seminar before each workshop. If the workshop was on a Saturday, we’d conduct a seminar earlier in the week, on Monday or Tuesday.

Devin:
What’s the difference between the pre-seminar and the workshop?

Anand:
In the seminar, we introduced WordPress—what it is, the career opportunities, why it’s important, and how it can help students in their careers. It was a one-hour or 90-minute seminar where everyone just listened.

There was no cap on the number of attendees for the seminar. The colleges could allow as many students as they wanted because it didn’t require much effort from us. I conducted all the seminars myself, and whether there were 100 or 1,000 students, it didn’t matter.

We also told them about the upcoming workshop and how to prepare for it. This helped the colleges filter out students. They allowed interested students to express their interest in the workshop, which helped us focus only on those who genuinely wanted to learn.

Devin:
And what did the schools do to support you besides providing the venue? Did you ask them for anything specific, like computers or rooms with certain facilities?

Anand:
Yes. For the seminars, most colleges provided their conference halls or big auditoriums. For the workshops, we used their computer labs. We couldn’t ask every student to bring their own laptop, as not everyone had one.

We encouraged students with laptops to bring them so they could carry their work home, but for those who didn’t, we relied on the computer labs. The colleges helped us set up the computers and provided Wi-Fi access.

Additionally, they assigned one or two faculty members to assist during the workshops. These teachers helped manage technical issues, like troubleshooting lab setups or ensuring the equipment was running smoothly.

Devin:
What about projectors? Were they available, or did you need to bring your own?

Anand:
The infrastructure varied across colleges. Some had everything we needed; others required us to rent or bring our own equipment.

For instance, at one college, the projector had color resolution issues, and we couldn’t compromise on colors while building websites. So, we brought our own projector to ensure the quality of the presentation.

In another college, we had a large computer lab that could accommodate 100–150 students at once, which made it easier to manage. But in some colleges, we had to split the students into multiple rooms because their labs could only handle 30–40 students each.

Devin:
That must have been a challenge. Did you run any other initiatives, like contests, to engage the students?

Anand:
Yes, we ran a social media contest throughout the event. We announced it during the seminars, encouraging students to share photos, experiences, or anything related to the event on social media. This helped increase engagement and spread the word about WordPress.

Devin:
What platforms were the students most active on?

Anand:
We found that students were more active on Instagram and LinkedIn, so we focused there. We got great responses, especially on LinkedIn.

Devin:
Did you choose winners for the contest?

Anand:
Yes. After each workshop, we selected two to three winners from each college.

Devin:
What were the prizes?

Anand:
We gave them custom swag, like coffee mugs, along with WordPress pins and other items provided by sponsors.

Devin:
That’s awesome! It sounds like you thought of everything to make the event engaging and impactful.

Devin:
That’s awesome! It sounds like you thought of everything to make the event engaging and impactful. Pooja, I’m curious—what about the curriculum? What did you teach during the workshop, and how many people were helping you? I don’t think it was only the two of you running around teaching. How big was your organizing team, and what did the curriculum look like?

Pooja:
We are a team of 10 people, and everyone was doing everything.

Devin:
Sounds like a small WordCamp!

Pooja:
Yes. Three or four team members were in the program team. They were responsible for creating the curriculum and everything about the demo website that we were going to teach the students.

We planned it so that, during the workshop, students would create something similar to the demo website we prepared. On the workshop day, we had two to three facilitators at each college. As I said, everyone was doing everything—facilitators, assistants, helping students, and supporting them in the best way possible.

Devin:
You also mentioned earlier that some colleges had two or three teachers helping out. Were these teachers experienced with WordPress? Did you involve them in planning or guiding students?

Pooja:
Not exactly. These teachers supported us with technical tasks, like setting up the computer labs, troubleshooting, providing Wi-Fi passwords, and so on. They were more like technical support during the workshop.

Devin:
Did you require the schools to prepare anything specific in advance, like installing software or meeting minimum requirements for the computers?

Pooja:
Yes. When we held a seminar at the colleges, we visited their labs to check the computers. We installed the required software on one or two computers and then asked their lab assistants to install it on all the systems.

We also published a handbook guide for the students on our website, with complete instructions on how to install the necessary software. We shared the link with the students so they could follow the instructions and have everything ready before the workshop.

This saved us time on the workshop day. Otherwise, it would’ve been a waste of one or two hours just installing software. Most of the students followed our guidance, checked the materials, and came prepared.

Devin:
What about systems that couldn’t support the software?

Pooja:
There were some systems where the software didn’t work, usually because they were outdated or didn’t have the latest updates. For those cases, we used InstantWP as a backup. We created a few InstantWP setups and shared the links with those students. This worked well.

Devin:
You mentioned publishing the instructions. Where can students find them?

Pooja:
We used a shorter domain—wpajmer.com—for the event because the main event domain was quite long and not easy to share with students. All the useful materials and instructions were hosted there.

Devin:
I see. That’s a smart solution.

Anand:
I’d like to add something about how we implemented the workshops. We created a sample website and showed it to the students during the seminar, telling them, “This is what you’re going to build.”

Since we only had five to six hours for the workshop, it wasn’t practical to build everything from scratch. So, we prepared all the necessary data—images, content, and even an XML file for blog posts. Students could download everything at the start of the workshop and use it to build their websites.

This saved time and gave students a sense of accomplishment because their work closely matched the demo site. The goal wasn’t to teach them everything about WordPress in one day but to give them a feeling of accomplishment and inspire them to learn more.

Devin:
Wow, that’s impressive. You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into this. Folks, if you’re listening, Anand and Pooja make it sound like a lot of work—but they’ve been smiling the entire time, which shows how much they enjoy it. That’s what WordPress and community organizing are all about—joy and impact.

Pooja, you look like you want to say something.

Pooja:
Yes. Anand is going to speak at WordCamp Delhi about WP Campus Connect and its impact on our community. If you want to learn more about our experiences and challenges, stay tuned and join his talk.

Devin:
That’s great! Do you have any other messages for the community or people who want to replicate what you’ve done?

Anand:
Yes. We’ve already heard from many people interested in replicating this model in their cities. Some have even asked about it during the planning phase.

Events like WP Campus Connect are crucial for engaging students and growing the next generation of WordPress users and contributors. WordCamps are great, but they cater to a broader audience. For students, we need tailored events that help them connect and learn.

Pooja:
I agree. WP Campus Connect solves multiple problems. It brings new users to WordPress and helps students choose WordPress as their career path.

If anyone wants to replicate this, please feel free to reach out. We’d be happy to help and share our experiences.

Devin:
That’s inspiring. I’m sure your work will inspire communities beyond Ajmer and India.

Pooja:
I also want to thank all our sponsors who believed in our vision and supported us, especially Bob and Do the Woo. Without their support, this wouldn’t have been possible.

Devin:
Absolutely. And for those listening, remember WordCamp Delhi is coming up on November 30th and December 1st. Tickets are still available, so grab yours!

Also, as we mentioned earlier, the three of us are part of WordCamp Asia 2025, happening in Manila from February 20th to 22nd. Do the Woo will have a booth there, so come by and say hello!

Anand:
Yes, it’s not just a sponsor booth—it’s a networking hub where you can connect with amazing people from the community.

Devin:
Exactly. WordPress is all about connecting people, ideas, and communities. Thank you, Pooja and Anand, for sharing your journey. You’ve done incredible work.

Pooja and Anand:
Thank you, Devin!

Devin:
See you next time. Bye!

Pooja and Anand:
Bye!