The Journey of WordCamp Nepal

The story of WordCamp Nepal is more than a story of conferences. It is a story of people, passion, collaboration, contribution, and a community that keeps growing, evolving, and finding new ways to bring WordPress to every corner of Nepal.

It all began in 2011, when a small group of WordPress enthusiasts came together through the WordPress Nepal community and started organizing regular meetups. These gatherings created a space for people to learn from one another, share experiences, and connect with others who were passionate about WordPress. As the community grew, the idea of bringing everyone together for something bigger began to take shape.

2012 – The Beginning

On November 10, 2012, Nepal hosted its very first WordCamp Nepal in Kathmandu.

This was a defining moment for the Nepali WordPress community. What had started as small local meetups had now grown into a full-fledged WordCamp, connecting developers, designers, bloggers, entrepreneurs, and WordPress enthusiasts.

The inaugural WordCamp was led by the late Ujwal Thapa, one of the pioneers of Nepal’s open-source movement. The event also received international attention, including a message from WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and the presence of Philip Arthur Moore from Automattic.

The first WordCamp was not simply about WordPress. It was about proving that an open-source community could come together, learn together, and build something meaningful together.

And that was only the beginning.

2013 – Building the Foundation

The second WordCamp Nepal took place on October 26, 2013, at Yalamaya Kendra, Patan Dhoka.

With a growing number of speakers, sessions, discussions, and attendees, the event continued to establish WordCamp as an important gathering for Nepal’s technology community.

The conversations were already expanding beyond blogging and websites into themes, development, APIs, security, SEO, payment gateways, freelancing, and the business opportunities around WordPress.

Chandra Maharzan led the 2013 edition, continuing the foundation laid by the first WordCamp.

2014 & 2015 – A Growing National Community

The momentum continued with WordCamp Nepal 2014 on November 22 at Yalamaya Kendra, followed by WordCamp Nepal 2015 on November 21 at Nepal Administrative Staff College, Jawalakhel.

By this point, WordCamp Nepal had become an eagerly anticipated annual gathering. The first few editions were consistently selling out, showing how quickly interest in WordPress was growing.

The community was also beginning to understand an important principle of open source: the event belonged to the community.

Financial transparency, volunteerism, sponsorship, knowledge sharing, and reinvesting event surplus into future meetups and WordCamps became part of the culture. The 2014 accounts, for example, explicitly stated that the surplus would be used for future WordCamps and community activities.

Sakin Shrestha led the 2014 and 2015 editions, helping take the event to another level.

2016 – From One WordCamp to Many Communities

In 2016, WordCamp Nepal entered a new chapter.

Rather than having one large national WordCamp every year, the community began exploring a decentralized, city-based model. The goal was simple: instead of bringing everyone to Kathmandu, take WordCamp closer to communities across Nepal and encourage local WordPress communities to grow.

This led to the first WordCamp Kathmandu in 2016, followed by another edition in 2017.

This shift was significant.

WordCamp was no longer something that happened only in the capital. It was becoming something that communities across Nepal could build themselves.

2018 – WordCamp Goes Nationwide

The decentralization model truly came alive in 2018, when WordCamps were organized in three cities:

• Kathmandu
• Pokhara
• Biratnagar

This was an important milestone for the Nepali WordPress ecosystem. Different cities were developing their own communities, organizers, speakers, contributors, and volunteers.

The movement was no longer centered around a single city. It was becoming a national network.

The growing international participation was another sign of this evolution. WordCamp Nepal’s events increasingly attracted international speakers and attendees from neighboring countries, creating connections between Nepal’s community and the wider global WordPress ecosystem.

2019 – The Community Keeps Expanding

The momentum continued in 2019, with WordCamps taking place in:

• Kathmandu
• Pokhara
• Bharatpur

Different communities were now taking ownership of their own events, creating opportunities for people outside Kathmandu to learn, contribute, speak, volunteer, and lead.

WordCamp had become much more than an annual conference.

It had become a way of strengthening local technology communities.

2020 – A Different Kind of Challenge

Then came 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world and created enormous challenges for communities everywhere. WordCamp activities were significantly affected, and Nepal’s WordCamp calendar was reduced to a single event in Butwal, held on January 25, 2020.

But even a global pandemic could not stop the spirit of the WordPress community.

The connections built over the previous years continued to keep the community alive.

2022 – WordCamp Nepal Returns to the National Stage

After the pandemic, WordCamp activities gradually returned.

WordCamp Kathmandu 2022 took place in September, followed by a major milestone in November:

WordCamp Nepal 2022 in Bharatpur, Chitwan.

Held on November 5 & 6 at Chitwan Garden Resort, it was the first national-level WordCamp outside Kathmandu.

This was a powerful statement.

The national WordCamp was no longer tied to Kathmandu. The community had matured enough to take the national event to another part of the country.

Bharatpur showed that WordCamp Nepal could travel, and that regional communities could host and lead national-level events.

2023 – Continuing the Momentum

In 2023, WordCamp Kathmandu returned, keeping the momentum alive and creating another opportunity for the community to connect, learn, contribute, and celebrate WordPress.

The community was now entering a new phase, one where regional strength and national collaboration could exist together.

2024 – Pokhara Makes History

In January 2024, WordCamp Nepal travelled to Pokhara.

Held on January 12 – 13 at Hotel Pokhara Grande, the event aimed to bring together more than 1,000 people from Nepal and beyond.

WordCamp Nepal 2024 became one of the biggest milestones in the community’s history.

Taking the national WordCamp to Pokhara demonstrated how far the decentralized model had come. The national event could now be hosted outside Kathmandu while still bringing together a large and diverse community from across Nepal and beyond.

It was another reminder that WordPress in Nepal was no longer concentrated in one place.

2025 – Back to Kathmandu

After a decade, WordCamp Nepal returned to Kathmandu in 2025.

Held on April 4-5 at Kundalini Durbar, Chandol, the event brought together more than 550 attendees, 21 speakers, 36 sessions, 29 sponsors, 32 organizers, and 29 volunteers. Contributor Day alone welcomed more than 320 participants.

The theme of the event, Connect, Contribute, and Celebrate, beautifully captured what WordCamp had become.

It was no longer simply a conference where people came to listen to talks.

People came to contribute to WordPress, meet collaborators, find opportunities, build friendships, mentor others, support newcomers, and celebrate the community they had helped create.

2026 – Taking the National WordCamp Further West

The journey continued in 2026, when WordCamp Nepal travelled to Butwal in Lumbini Province.

Held on January 23 – 24 at Manigram Bishram Batika, the event marked another important step toward regional empowerment. It was described as the first national-level WordCamp held in Butwal, bringing the national WordPress community further into western Nepal.

The event included a dedicated Contributor Day followed by Conference Day, continuing the community’s commitment to both learning and contributing to the WordPress project.

And the numbers reflected the continued growth:

660+ attendees and 31 speakers came together for WordCamp Nepal 2026, while Contributor Day brought hundreds of people into the contribution ecosystem.

More importantly, Butwal represented something bigger than another event location.

It represented the continuing decentralization of the WordPress movement in Nepal, creating opportunities for regional communities to lead, organize, connect, and grow.

From Kathmandu to the Nation

Looking back, the journey of WordCamp Nepal is a story of transformation.

2012: One national WordCamp in Kathmandu.

2013 – 2015: A growing national community and an annual tradition.

2016 – 2017: The beginning of city-based WordCamps.

2018 – 2019: WordCamp spreads across multiple cities.

2020: A pandemic tests the community’s resilience.

2022: The national WordCamp returns and moves beyond Kathmandu for the first time.

2023: Local communities continue to strengthen.

2024: Pokhara hosts one of the biggest WordCamp Nepal editions.

2025: The national event returns to Kathmandu with renewed energy and a powerful focus on connection and contribution.

2026: Butwal becomes another landmark in the journey toward a truly nationwide WordPress community.

But the real story isn’t the number of events, attendees, speakers, or cities.

The real story is the people.

The organizers who give months of their time.

The volunteers who work behind the scenes.

The speakers who share what they know.

The sponsors who support the community.

The contributors who give back to WordPress.

The local communities that keep meeting, learning, and growing.

The first-time attendees who walk into a WordCamp knowing almost nobody and leave with new friends, mentors, collaborators, and opportunities.

And the leaders who keep passing the torch forward.

From the vision of pioneers like Ujwal Thapa, through the leadership of generations of organizers and community members, WordCamp Nepal has evolved from a single gathering into a nationwide movement.

And the Journey Continues

More than a decade after that first gathering in 2012, the spirit behind WordCamp Nepal remains the same:

Learn. Share. Contribute. Connect.

The locations may change.

The people may change.

The technology may change.

The challenges may change.

But the heart of the community remains the same – people coming together because they believe in the power of open source and in the power of community.

From Kathmandu to Pokhara, Bharatpur, Biratnagar, Butwal, and beyond, the journey of WordCamp Nepal is ultimately the story of a community that keeps moving forward.

One WordCamp. One city. One contributor. One connection at a time.

And the next chapter is waiting to be written, as we take WordCamp Nepal further to the West of Nepal.

2027: WordCamp Nepal 2027 will be in Nepalgunj, Lumbini, as we work to form a bigger and better community that covers the western region of Nepal.