Last Saturday (08/11/2025) I was a speaker at WordCamp Athens!
And while you go prepared for the speech, with your anxiety, your slides, your videos – you try to look comfortable so as not to make a fuss! – in the end everything goes away and the organization itself makes you let go! Smiles, a community full of life, meetings with old friends as well as new acquaintances!
The Setup
The organization was excellent: the conference was held in a space that is the most suitable for holding such events, with professionalism and friendliness!
The OTE Academy buildings hosted us and the atendees filled them with their presence!
There were two tracks with parallel talks. This element helped visitors choose what they wanted to see (let’s not forget that not everyone is a dev or designer)!
As for the speeches, you really can’t single out any of them! They all left their own mark on the visitors’ thoughts, and they certainly all gave their own spark for a new idea to be born (at least within us)!
The experience on stage
When it was my turn to go on stage, the emotions were mixed.
On the one hand, you’re happy to be given such an opportunity, to express your thoughts to an audience you don’t know directly, but on the other hand, you break out in a cold sweat!
“What if I don’t say it right? What if I make a mistake? What if my thinking isn’t right?” Not to mention that when the lights “point at you so furiously,” and the audience hides in the darkness, you get a little anxious!
Regardless, the presentation went extremely well. Although my topic was very technical, and although some people definitely “lost” me along the way, at the end of the speech we had some great questions, inquiries, and room for discussion.
The acquaintances
And here’s where the “nice” part begins for me:
The professional from another city who told me, “I see you on social media, your thoughts are great, I’m glad to meet you in person.”
The group that went as company staff, but we eventually became “interlocutors.”
The informal chat during the break: “What project are you working on?”, “How did you manage to overcome such and such a problem?”, “Can you help me with my following topic?” And of course that “I saw your new project, we’re interested.”
Really, as you see people moving from the rooms to the cafeteria, from track A to track B, you understand that the power of WordCamp is not just the speeches, but the network that is created.
All speeches – one by one
As I mentioned above, each talk I attended was “one by one.” I really can’t single any of them out,even though because of the two tracks (Track A and Track B) I wasn’t able to attend them all – as much as I wanted to.
What am I taking with me:
- How technical knowledge is essential, but without human contact it loses energy.
- the WordPress community is not just “users” and “developers” but people who share a passion – even if that is not necessarily WordPress itself.
- How when you are a speaker, you are not just “there to talk”, you are “there to connect”, to “give”.
- How the next project, the next collaboration, or the next idea can arise from a casual conversation over coffee.
In conclusion
So as a blog post: it was an experience that far exceeded my expectations!
Everything we experienced, with the people, with the conversation, with the “small” community for a few hours in a very nice place in Maroussi, made you – despite all the fatigue – not want to go home, to say anything else, to talk to one more person.
We would like to thank the entire WordCamp Athens team, all the volunteers and organizers, as well as all the participants!
See you at the next one!
PS: Let’s see 2 backstage photos (the others will be uploaded to our social media)
Karvounis Dimitris