In the Spotlight
By Sharmini Jayawardena
The event of the WordPress community in Malaysia was held concurrently in three venues today.
I was a participant at the event held at the Royale Chulan Hotel in Bukit Bintang along with Sumitra.
WordPress merchandise and edible treats greeted us in the morning.
It was a well organized affair entirely run by volunteers coming together to make it happen and happen big! Kudos to Sam Suresh the event organizer and his team!
What with being treated to awesome fair at every break and at lunch time, which was an all inclusive buffet that we enjoyed along with the great service.
The speakers flew in from various destinations on their own account and it is amazing to find such commitment to a Cause take place so effectively.
They are all driven by an energy that creates the need to make happen a new objective be it tangible or otherwise but something for the collective future good of all of us for sure. While being a noble effort this is also personally, an extremely gratifying experience.
We met some very interesting courageous and exceptional people, from those who were self taught in web development as in Manmohan, to Sathiswara also a developer who was in a wheelchair and we were introduced to Malaysia’s first successful blogger, Liew Cheon Fong.
The event was held concurrently in the Ballroom of the hotel as well as in the Tiara Room and they were running at full capacity. There was even a participant from Sabah, East Malaysia!
The topics handled by the speakers either widened our knowledge or reaffirmed our already held beliefs in developing our Blogzine and marketing it.
For the first time I found myself in an environment full of web developers and serious ones who made a living of it and let me tell you they are a crazy bunch but not as crazy as the bloggers themselves I believe. I did miss the writers and decided I should attend the WordPress Meet Ups for this.
The day’s proceedings took off with Welcome Remarks: Malaysian WordPress Community by Sam Suresh.
We attended WordPress for Photographers and Cinematographers by Nadzrul Hanif Nadzer.
Then it was time for Sri Lankan speaker Dasun Edirisinghe who spoke on Developing Gamification Platforms on Top of WordPress, on the need to work on competitiveness and rewards in marketing your blog. It was most interesting.
Why WordPress and WooCommerce is the Right Choice for New Marketplace Startups by Malaysia’s very own Ang Gee Guan where we learned how Ang uses WordPress for his start-up, I-Do-Spa. A platform that help spa owners and customers connect.
The Bangladeshi speaker Lincoln Islam spoke on How to Build a Business around WordPress.
After lunch Neils Lange from Germany spoke on what WordPress is going to develop into in the near future, in: Gutenberg for Modern Editing.
Then Leonard Losoviz from Argentina spoke on his very own invention: Platform of Platforms or POP, in How to Make a Decentralized WordPress Website.
Cherry Sireetorn Prommawin from Google spoke on Managing Your Online Presence on Google Search.
We couldn’t stay back for Australian speaker Matthew Knighton who spoke on WebVR and New Technologies.
Altogether a day spent well and productively. 
