Global opportunities in the WordPress space – WordCamp Jinja 2022

This year I got an opportunity to be part of the MRK WP – Africa Team that attended the WordCamp Jinja 2022. This WordCamp was also the first I ever participated in.

MRK WP was among the Gold sponsors for the event.

I am part of the remote distributed team at MRK WP. So I felt it wise to give a talk to my local community on how they can tap into WordPress Global opportunities.

Earlier this year. My WordPress Community invited me – WordPress Kampala, to provide a talk on this similar topic.

WordCamp Jinja brought together other local WordPress communities in Uganda. It also attracted those within the East African region. I was compelled to share my views on global and remote work in WordPress. This time around, with better insights and presenting to a larger audience.

Most of the members in our WordPress community of Uganda and Africa at large. Both paid and freelancers feel their local market’s pay does not match the value of the creative work.

We must encourage community members to tap into opportunities outside their local space. For example, remote jobs offer better pay since compensation is on a global scale. This strategy enables them to earn better for their work.

I shared my views on Global opportunities on a discussion panel. On the forum, I was with other speakers whose topics were closely related to mine. For example, other panelists discussed “Global workspace and collaboration”, and “Pricing and Professionalism”.

This panel discussion took place on Day 1 of the event in the afternoon. All event tracks, including the Teachers Workshop, the Diverse Speakers track, and the Web Design Hackathon. These were combined to form the audience for the panel discussion.

My Presentation

In my submission. I shared with the audience how best they can position themselves to tap these global opportunities.

When it came to global opportunities in WordPress, we discussed the following;

1. The I do at MRK WP and its working environment.
2. Defining Global Opportunities.
3. Comparison between local and global jobs.
4. Types of WordPress roles.
5. Requirements in global WordPress workspace.
6. Roadmap to getting WordPress remote jobs.
   • Technical skills in WordPress.
     • How to gain technical skills/knowledge.
     • The right Internet resources/materials to learn from.
   • Soft skills in a workplace.
7. Where to find global WordPress opportunities
   • Generating customer leads through;
     • Building your Portfolio.
     • Youtube channel reach outs.
   • Searching for jobs and gigs on remote job sites.
8. Encourage people to apply and join the MRK WP team.

Here is a link to my presentation slides on Global Opportunities In WordPress.

Other Presentations at WordPress.

WordCamp Jinja allowed me to expand my knowledge and skills from topics shared at the event. On Day 2 of the event, we had our own Ronnie Kamara – Regional manager presenting “SEO for Business” to the attendees.

Most of the content at WordCamp Jinja was targeted at persons at the beginner level. Topics on setting up a WordPress site and creating an excellent Woo-commerce store. SEO topics on writing content that ranks. SEO best practices for e-commerce and business all fell under the beginner category.

All those mentioned above had the most engaging audiences. In addition, business-related topics such as getting and maintaining clients. Pricing and professionalism in WordPress also attracted active participation from the attendees.

Other topics on contributing to open source, working with REST API, and Hooks in WordPress. Deploying projects online targeted more mid-senior WordPress users of the audiences. These, too, had fair participation at the end of the day.

Take Home

WordCamp Jinja allowed me to share my WordPress experience at MRK WP with others. I encouraged community members to look out more for global jobs than settling for local gigs.

The most significant percentage of attendees at the event were young people (students). I observed their dedication towards being part of and learning from WordPress communities. This motivated me to increase my participation and support with my local community.

The future of WordPress in Uganda is undoubtedly bright and is in the right hands. I want to thank the organisers, sponsors, speakers, and volunteers. I am also grateful to the attendees and other groups that made this event possible.

In a special way, I would like to extend my appreciation towards MRK WP for supporting the events and communities their team members are part of.

Looking forward to attending more WordCamps.