Announcing the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship Winner: Bianca Welds

To honor the memory of Kim Parsell, the WordPress Foundation set up a memorial scholarship to ensure that Kim’s core values would continue to be infused into the WordPress community.

Kim was very keen on seeing women participate and thrive in all aspects of the WordPress community. We think that this year’s recipient, Bianca Welds, is a woman whom Kim Parsell would have liked to have met.

Bianca lives in Kingston, Jamaica. Having studied technology at university, she now works in more general and project management areas, while freelancing through her WordPress consultancy, L’Attitude Studios. Bianca was an early adopter of WordPress, creating her first WordPress site in 2005.

While there are many WordPress users in Jamaica, initially there was not much of an active community. Within last few years, Bianca decided to get more involved in the global WordPress community, including speaking and starting a local meetup.  Bianca spoke at her first WordCamp in July 2017 at WordCamp Ottowa.

When asked about how WordPress intersects with her life, Bianca stated, “My current career focus is helping purpose-driven and creative people and organisations achieve success through innovation and entrepreneurial thinking. My WordPress consultancy specifically, L’Attitude Studios, is geared at helping organisations with a creative or a social purpose have a website that works for them and helps them achieve their goals. I have a few projects working on at present to launch early next year. My own personal goal is to get deeper into WordPress development as programming is my original background.”

Bianca is a WordCamp US 2017 speaker whose talk is Pah! Jamaican Sign Language and WordPress. Her presentation will share how a partnership between an activist couple and a WordPress developer has changed how they spread their message and helped to improve the way of life for the Deaf in this island nation.

“Getting to attend WordCamp US and speak is a huge achievement for me, and will help me to make my mark in the wider community and build out a network of WordPressers so I can deepen my involvement in the community.” This is how Bianca explained what her goals for attending WCUS are going to be. She continued, ” Being selected for the Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship is an amazing opportunity, and I will do my best to live up to her memory, and make the most of this chance at WordCamp US.”

When she’s not working, you can find Bianca playing steel pan, writing poetry, or salsa dancing.