WCEU 2023 Publishes Schedule, Reaffirms Commitment to Diversity

WordCamp Europe 2023 is just under three weeks away from happening in Athens on June 8-10. More than 2,700 tickets have been purchased and 527 remain, along with 49 micro-sponsor tickets.

Speaker announcements have concluded and the official schedule was published today. WCEU will be running three tracks of presentations and two tracks for workshops. Organizers have also announced a Wellness Track that will feature different activities throughout the day, including a Yoga class, a Tai Chi class, and a group hike.

“The Wellness Track is an important addition to WordCamp Europe because we need to find a balance and be more focused on taking care of our minds and bodies, taking care of the whole community and in turn the one world we have to live in,” organizer Ohia Thompson said.

“This means seeing our interconnectedness and moving forward with a focus on wellbeing, diversity, and sustainability. The Wellness Track this year is just the beginning of a more intentional future for everyone connected to WordPress.”

Last year the team hosting the event in Porto was called out for a lack of diversity on the organizing team, which performs critical tasks like selecting speakers and managing a speaker support program. In what appears to be an echo back to that controversy, a public interaction on Twitter earlier this month caused community members to question the organizing team.

WCEU was once again forced to reaffirm its commitment to diversity after Sjoerd Blom, one of the Global organizers, accused StellarWP’s Director of Community Engagement, Michelle Frechette, of “being prejudiced” when she questioned the lack of diversity in the first few rounds of speaker announcements.

Please stop being prejudiced and wait until ALL speakers have been announced. Thanks.

— Sjoerd Blom (@sjblom) May 9, 2023

Blom has since publicly apologized for his response to the criticism this week, reiterating that diversity matters to the team, but only after WCEU received overwhelmingly negative feedback regarding the incident.

In past weeks, @michelleames highlighted the lack of diversity in WCEU’s speaker line up. I’m truly sorry for the offense I caused, especially in using the word ‘prejudiced’. #WCEU and I know that diversity matters, and we will be sharing more about what happened in coming days.

— Sjoerd Blom (@sjblom) May 18, 2023

WordCamp Europe has not yet published anything to mitigate the effects of this public altercation but damage control measures are likely in the works, as Blom indicated a more official response will be coming from the team.