Drupal Around the World: April 2013

If you know Drupal well enough to find yourself reading this, you probably know that Drupal is powered by a global community. In practice, though, it is very easy to look at your local community, your co-workers, and the people you meet at DrupalCons and think, “This is the Drupal community.”

The reality is that we each know and understand a limited slice of the community; the experiences and perspectives are different from locale to locale, sector to sector, function to function, and of course individual to individual.

A new blog series

This is the first of what I hope will be a recurring series of blog posts calling out different parts of the Drupal community around the world. You will also begin to hear personally from leaders in some of these communities through guest blog posts that are currently under development. These guest bloggers will share their experiences with Drupal, how their communities are growing, and the impact that involvement with Drupal is having on the individuals they work with.

As a first look, here are some of the things I have learned in the past few weeks about what’s happening in the bigger, global Drupal community:

View Drupal Around the World: April 2013 in a larger map

Volunteers throughout Latin America and around the world have come together to create DrupalPicchu, targeted to happen in Cusco, Peru, near the world-famous Machu Picchu, in January 2014. With a mission statement that reads, “To celebrate the freedom and cultural diversity of the Drupal Community,” and a focus on inclusiveness, DrupalPicchu seeks to bring Latin America a major Drupal event that is broadly accessible, of global appeal, and community-led.

Latin America also saw its third Drupal Summit Latino last month, in Loja, Ecuador. An annual event, this year’s Summit drew ~150 attendees and featured speakers from 16 countries in Latin America, as well as guest speakers from Australia, the USA, France, and Germany. (Don’t read Spanish? They’ve posted a recap in English here.) The Summit team was a creative bunch as well, producing an awesome graphic calling out Drupal ‘pioneers’ around the world helping to grow Drupal in Latin America, and the Drupal Harlem Shake!

One more from Latin America--Bolivia saw its first DrupalCamp in February. Taking place in February in Cochabamba, the inaugural DrupalCamp Bolivia featured a training day and two full days of presentations, many of which are available for download on their website.

Halfway around the world and way up north, London (England) saw its first DrupalCamp at the beginning of March. With over 400 attendees, DrupalCamp London spanned three full days with a dual-track Business Day/Training Day, a full day of session content, and a sprint day. Wish you could have been there? Videos are available on YouTube. (London is hopping! Its next event is Frontend United, this weekend.)

Continuing our tour, the second of a series of code drop-ins took place in Mumbai (India) on March 16th. The drop-in series is off to a great start, and is designed to foster knowledge-sharing and bring new contributors up-to-speed with key skills like git and D.O workflows. The next drop-in event is scheduled for April 27th.

Final stop--the Philippines! In February, the community organized a successful DrupalCamp Manila that took place in Makati. You can read a recap and check out photos here. The activity continues with an ongoing Campus Tour, introducing Drupal to students and faculty throughout the country, and training-oriented, monthly meetups.

Coming soon...

We’ve also heard from organizers with upcoming DrupalCamps!

Sweden is preparing for DrupalCamp Göteborg, happening May 25th. Their site is up and tickets are on sale!

Ukraine’s DrupalCamp Kyiv takes place June 7 - 8. Thanks to their nifty multi-lingual site, I can tell you that they are presently taking both registrations and session submissions!

Later this summer, Moscow (Russia) will be home to DrupalCamp CIS August 24-25. They don’t have a full site set up, but you can join their email list and find their social media accounts from the homepage.

This is a small sampling of community activities going on around the world. Many of these events and initiatives were partially funded by Community Cultivation Grants--which are made possible by you, through DA membership dues. Want to contribute? Go here to become a member, or here for resources to help promote the Drupal Association at your next event.