 Thank you so much Julia for that wonderful introduction before I really get going though I want to thank a couple of sponsors first I want to thank cloudways for the coffee break because we know that we need coffee at word camps But I'd also like to thank a kismet for bringing in the spam bots in the open source open canvas Installation that you probably saw in the sponsor area the little click click click click so You might have heard by now that wordpress has turned 20 years old this year and Yeah, sure WordPress at 20 years old is busy rewriting itself And I mean that literally we are rewriting our code base using a language that in 2016 We had not quite yet managed to learn deeply We are redefining what we consider an MVP in our wordpress event series even though some would say if it ain't broke don't fix it and We are examining what open source tools we provide to open source projects that surround and support wordpress If that were all we were doing it would be more than enough we would have a nice full plate Each of those things by themselves represents a change in our skill sets our way of thinking and our understanding of what it means to be a wordpressor But in true wordpress fashion that is not all we're doing We are also asking ourselves hard questions about how we want to arrive as the wordpress of tomorrow And honestly it makes sense, right? I don't know about you But when I was 18 or 19, I thought I knew everything It wasn't until I was in my early 20s when I thought to myself, you know If I know everything then it's really going to prevent me from learning anything And so wordpress 20 years in is I think Appropriately asking big questions and when we've got a lot of big questions. We host something called a community summit Who was at the community summit? Cool, you're all real close to the front good for you So the community summit is a forum for open discussion of our toughest topics And we hosted one earlier this week. It was about two days long. There were a little over a hundred people a little over a hundred people 125 people and the organizers went above and beyond to get as representative a group of attendees as possible There were a lot of questions submitted from the community both from team reps and then teams themselves But something that showed up at the heart of many of our conversations was a focus on how to keep wordpress available And thriving well into the future There were questions like what can we do now to set the stage for success tomorrow and how can we maintain our project and Bring in new people Consistently we can all and also what can we do to make sure that wordpress just outlasts any of us? I was excited to see that this was on the hearts and minds of all of our community members Because it is a key element in my commitment to stewarding the longevity of this project And of course in open source, we believe that with many eyes all bugs are shallow But in my house, we also believe that many hands make light work So I ask myself and later I'm gonna ask you so hold on to it in your brains Not how to predict the future because we can't predict the future but how to make our project resilient regardless of what the future holds So Thriving what does this mean for wordpress from my vantage point? There are three different areas to consider But I bet for most of us only about two of the three are things you've ever really given much thought to The first and probably most obvious is about the software itself Of course, we want to make it more performance so that it's less taxing on our devices It uses less energy to run But we also want to make sure that it's easy to use easy to learn and easy to find other parts that go with it The extra things that make it a little better The second area is our are we going to sleep? I'm suddenly in space. I'm gonna continue For folks following along at home all the lights went out except for me Okay, so where were we second area? Yes, the second area Those are our multiple series of events whether it's a workshop a meetup word camps whatever it is that we're calling them on the horizon We want those to have less waste and provide more value But we also want them to be a place where you all can connect and feel inspired and just learn how to make WordPress work for you The third and potentially least visible area to a lot of us is the community itself and how we build it We want it to be easy to find us and easy and engaging to be a part of the WordPress community But we also want our community to continue to be a safe haven for folks who are Dreaming about their own future and an equitable opportunity to build the future that you all already know you want for yourselves So while I can't really predict the future and maybe Simon our keynote speaker from yesterday can I think that we can make a pretty good guess right by looking at what we know people always will want from us We always want WordPress to be reliably available to everybody who wants to use it We want it to be secure both physically and technologically and and as Vanilla installations and with all of the modifications you can put on it But we also want it to be fast and when we want it to be fast We mean like literally running fast But also easy to pick up and easy to put down and easy to get in and out of the community as it fits What you need to do with WordPress at the time so you see it's a really big question As though predicting the future wasn't obviously already a big one But fortunately, I'm not afraid of asking big questions and in my experience neither are you Because you might also be asking yourself a little question, which is kind of a big question, which is Why is it so important to make sure that we are thriving and I'm so glad you asked So it's important to make sure that we're thriving because WordPress can change a life And I mean it can change the entire direction of where you thought you were headed and where you intended to go But not if you don't know about it The more that people know about WordPress the more people can access the incredible opportunities that WordPress can provide and If you are in that moment right now if you're in the 18 19 20-year-old area where you're trying to figure out who you are or just wherever I'm gonna tell you a few things. I'm happy to say that You're probably doing it right now if you're trying to figure out how to get involved with WordPress I've got a simple first thing one use the software So you're already doing it probably right That's the easiest way of joining in to the WordPress project to make sure that we continue to thrive into the future Because we exist for as long as people want to use our software The second thing is taking some time to build your own knowledge Whether you're going to do that on learn wordpress.org or by researching a particularly tricky Ticket inside the support forums or again by being here at a word camp like this You're crafting the foundation that you need for your own future and This one is going to be controversial. So everyone breathe deeply and get ready You also can join to make sure that WordPress is thriving into the future by meeting someone I Am always looking out for our introverts in our technology field and I love you all But that is a true statement It's easy especially for folks who are brand new to WordPress to feel like you're new You don't know anybody and it's best to just kind of keep to yourself But one of the most incredible things about open source is that it is an equalizer so much of what looks like easy success from the outside comes down to a little arcane knowledge and a lot of connections and This community is a network of connections that you get to choose and it's open for the choosing It's also important for us to make sure that we are thriving because WordPress can change your community But not if they can't learn it WordPress and open source in general can support entire Communities and give them freedoms that they didn't know that they needed and the stronger our local communities are the better Our entire society gets to be So if you are in a moment right now where you're trying to learn how to expand what you do with WordPress either In your local world whether that be a large community or just two or three people I also have some ideas for that because I never bring you all problems without some idea of a solution So first thing you could build a site for a local charity because in my experience people who are called to Feed the hungry aren't always also called to be the best PHP developers or JavaScript developers or marketers While you're doing that you also can gather people together over coffee or in a park to talk about that cool project that you're doing and Share what you've learned because if there's one thing that I have learned about all of you in the eight years that I've been doing This it's that the WordPress community likes to learn shoulder to shoulder We like to be in it together so that we can be scared is as a unit and While you're gathering folks to share learnings why not take some time to ask the big questions that your community has at the moment They may feel Hard they may feel really big like this question about how to predict the future Which technically is an impossible question but you know the good news about impossible questions is that as Long as you're reaching out just past what you know is possible Eventually the impossible also becomes within reach and Finally, it's important to make sure that WordPress is thriving because WordPress can change our world But not if we don't have you all not if we don't have WordPressers in a time when people are looking for smaller safer and more curated ways to share their lives with people that they trust WordPress could be the antidote for the overexposure that many of us feel on social media This whole idea will make a little more sense if I remind us of our mission one final show of hands Who's aware of our mission? I? Love how few hands there are because everybody's gonna learn something today, and I love teaching people things. So here we go WordPress's mission is to democratize publishing Democratize publishing that's our mission. It's just two little words But it contains a huge theory about how we can impact the world When you democratize publishing you're providing easier access to knowledge opportunity and connections We and you are giving voices to the voiceless and securing the freedoms of the open web Both for everyone in here right now But also for everyone who comes after us not because anyone knows necessarily what those are off the top of their head Except for Matt Mullenweg who you will hear from shortly, but because that's not why it matters It matters because that's what you all deserve is an open web that has protected future rights and Because we are here so close to DC, but as I'm told repeatedly today not quite in it I'm going to share a little sort of quote From a founding father of the United States if he had known about open source He would say that open source is all about planting trees in whose shade. We know we will never rest If you have done any of the things that I'm talking about here today Anything that I've mentioned so far or just talk to someone else about WordPress You are already changing your world because everything that changes anything into a movement Or across a planet starts with one person and you've done it just by getting here So I'm going to give us a second to breathe through that and Also, sorry George Washington for saying you know open source So I'm going to call us all the way back to where we started our day today In Ken Lou's presentation this morning, which as if you were in here You saw me stand up and say that it spoke to my soul because it did he reminded us that we are storytellers by nature It is how we define who we are and what we mean in the world So I have these three questions for you. You can take them away with you. You can blog about them you can talk about it next to a Mastodon in the in the after party however you want to do this But I've got three questions. I want you to take with you today What is the story that you want to be able to tell about yourself? What is the story that you want to be able to tell about your time with us in wordpress? And what is the story that you want WordPress to tell? Thank you