Be sure to review the post What to Expect at the 2023 Community Summit.
What is the Community Summit?
The Community Summit is an intimate, in-person gathering of contributors from across the WordPress open source project. The Summit provides focused time for cross-project discussion, with the aim of moving the project forward and improving it in whatever ways we are able.
What will be discussed?
Community Summit discussions will center around topics that will help strengthen the overall WordPress open source project, or will help advance contributor teams’ work; and would specifically benefit from dedicated, in-person, cross-team discussion. Read more in this comprehensive post: What to Expect at the 2023 Community Summit.
Community Summit topics
View the full schedule and a list of sessions.
Community Summit selection process and criteria
Summit attendance has always been by invitation-only, in order to keep the discussion groups small enough that everyone present can interact and participate. Attendance is determined based on an application and selection process. Between now and the end of June, the organizing team will review applications and extend invitations on a rolling basis. To begin, the organizing team prioritized review of applications that require a visa.
In determining which applicants to invite to the Summit, the organizing team is focused on bringing together diverse representation from across the project. This includes a mix of new and experienced contributors from across geographies, organizations, and Make Teams. Our goal is to have a diverse and inclusive summit that provides a safe and encouraging space for our dedicated contributors to work on the WordPress project and the problems we encounter within it. We’re aware that many factors make up a diverse project, and strive to organize a Community Summit where anyone can participate regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, religion, or sexual identity and orientation. The Community Summit is currently raising funds for a travel assistance program, to ensure that finances are not a barrier to attendance.
The Community Summit is a discussion-based event that requires participation of truly diverse voices and perspectives in order to work through the hardest questions in our project and move WordPress forward, together. For more about this, check out Episode 49 of the WordPress Briefing podcast.
The Summit aims to gather a diverse group of people who can do one or more of the following:
- Bring fresh perspectives, ideas, and solutions; especially from other arenas, such as other fields or other open source projects
- Bring insight into how WordPress is used in various areas (such as hosting, plugin companies, search engines, the public sector, specific business sectors, small business, enterprise, etc.) and what struggles are associated with using WordPress in those different contexts
- Speak to specific struggles affecting various regions
- Represent the needs of each Make team
- Bring historical knowledge of various parts of the WordPress project
- Be able to help enact changes in various parts of the project (existing leaders)
Please note that the Summit is not intended to be:
- A “Who’s Who” in WordPress
- A collection of people who have made the most important contributions to the project
- A pathway to learn about contributing to the project (this is the purpose of Contributor Day; though could be a side benefit of Summit participation)
To assist in application review and selection, the organizing team is consulting all Make team reps to ensure that each team is adequately represented at the Summit. The organizing team has also asked WordPress Community Mentors to encourage promising new voices in WordPress from their respective regions to apply to participate in the Summit. Please note that we have received many applications from Community team and Core team contributors. In order to assure balanced representation at the Summit, a lot of these applicants will not be invited to attend, including many who are valued contributors to WordPress.
Do you know someone who is a new, promising voice in WordPress? Please encourage them to apply to attend!
Community Summit Travel Fund
Finances shouldn’t be a barrier to participation in the Summit, so the Community Summit established a Travel Fund to cover flight and lodging for non-sponsored attendees – 38 recipients – who otherwise might not be able to attend due to finances. The travel fund is crucial to our community’s commitment to inclusion. Read more about it in this post.
Date and location
The WordPress Community Summit will be held August 22-23, 2023, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, located in National Harbor, Maryland.
Located on the banks of the Potomac River, the Gaylord’s iconic atrium provides sweeping rain-or-shine views of Alexandria, Virginia and is just a quick ride south of Washington, D.C.
Airport options
National Harbor is close to not one but three major airports:
- 13 miles: Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA)
- 34 miles: Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD)
- 41 miles: Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).
Hotel room block
Attendees will have access to a limited number of discounted-rate rooms at the Gaylord resort. More information on booking will be made available closer to the event date.
WordCamp US
WordCamp US Contributor Day (free and open to all, with a separate registration required) immediately follows on August 24. WordCamp US programming will be held August 25-26. All Community Summit participants will receive a reservation code to purchase a WordCamp US ticket.