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.
As stated on the WordPress Foundation website, “Kim was a valued and committed contributor to the WordPress open source project, and this is the WordPress Foundation’s way of honoring her. This scholarship will be awarded to a woman-identifying WordPress contributor who has never attended WordCamp US before, and requires financial assistance to attend.”
Today we are excited to announce that the recipients for this year are Margherita Pelonara, Simona Simionato, and Pooja Derashri!
Kim was an avid supporter of women participating and thriving in all aspects of the WordPress community. This year’s recipients are doing just that.
Since the WordPress Foundation was unable to offer the scholarship in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year only there are three scholarships awarded for 2022, 2021, and 2020.
Let’s meet this year’s recipients!
Simona Simionato
Simona is the COO at a consulting company that focuses on digital learning and splits her time between Valencia, Spain and Milan, Italy.
Simona Simionato’s high-profile studies include a Degree in Statistics, a Master’s in International Tourism Management, and graduation in coaching – in a School officially recognized by the ICF – which enriched her professional profile as a specialized Brief Coach.
Characterized by a creative spirit and a logical and curious mind, along with rich and various professional experiences, Simona has followed a very exciting professional path that has allowed her to cover various interesting positions: from marketing and communication manager to product manager, from personal assistant to project manager, the great opportunity to work in both multinational and domestic companies and in different business environments, such as web, tourism, technology and retail.
What would it mean to you to attend WordCamp US 2022?
There are many reasons why I would like to come to WCUS.
The first is that I would like to learn more about the American community, to see what are the differences from the European community. Secondly, I would like to understand the business world related to American companies. I have had a few contacts, and I would like to understand what it would be like to move into a market as vast as yours.
My experience in WCUS could be a way to generate new ideas also for the communities I frequent here (Europe, Italy and Spain).”
What is your favourite and/or proudest contribution to the WordPress open source project?
The project I am most proud of is the Diversity Speaker Training project. It is a project that aims to bring underrepresented people to the stage. I attended the first workshop 5 years ago and then did it several times in Italy. I am delighted because many people have thanked me for the confidence I was able to give them. The knowledge from this project led me to have more than 50 % women speakers in the last WordCamp I organised in Milan.”
Pooja Derashri
Pooja Derashri hails from Ajmer, India. She started using WordPress in 2013.
Pooja and her husband Anand co-founded WPVibes, a WordPress plugin development agency. Her initial involvement was as a developer. Currently, she is transitioning towards SEO and Content Marketing.
Pooja started her WordPress contribution journey in 2017. Her initial contributions were in WPTV and Polyglots. Since 2021, Pooja has been part of the Global Translation Editor team for Hindi.
In 2019, she explored contribution opportunities in the WordPress Training Team. Since then, she has been a regular contributor to the Training team and enjoys the responsibility of Co-Team Rep. The team manages LearnWP, lesson plans, workshops, courses and Social learning space (SLS) to support people who are training others to use WordPress.
Pooja runs weekly APAC-friendly meetings, to encourage more people to join and contribute to the training team. She is also part of the WCAsia 2023 organising team.
What is your favorite and/or proudest contribution to the WordPress open source project?
For me, every contribution I make to WordPress makes me proud. It isn’t easy to pick a single one. But still, If asked to choose only one, I would like to mention my contributions to the training team.
I joined the team in 2019 when the team was gearing up for the initial launch of the LearnWP website. I got involved in it, and it was a fantastic experience working with the team. I enjoyed it a lot and became a regular contributor.
Since then, I am enjoying working with the Training team.
This year I got the big responsibility of Team Rep for the team. I am running a weekly meeting for APAC regions to add more and more contributors. Here I have got my mentor, made new friends and got myself a space in the WordPress community.”
What would it mean to you to attend WordCamp US 2022?
Attending WCUS will be a huge achievement for me. I will get a chance to meet and build networks with the global community, which will increase my involvement in the community. Furthermore, if selected, I will have many new friends, unforgettable memories, and new learnings that will help me be a better version of myself.”
Margherita Pelonara
Margherita Pelonara lives in Santa Maria Nuova, Italy with her husband, two sons (25 and 15 years old), two cats, and has an insane addiction to lipstick (and WordPress, of course!).
Margherita helps women freelancers who want to take their businesses and their lives to the next level: she builds websites with WordPress, fixes them, updates them, and teaches women how to use them.
Always in love with the Web, Margherita says “I am a WordPress ‘artisan’ since 2013, a WordPress trainer, a passionate advocate of accessibility, a champion of sharing (on social networks) and a feminist. If I’m not building websites, I organise meetings at the WordPress Ancona Meetup, a speaker at WordCamps, or organising them. In short, if WordPress is involved, it is quite likely that I will be there.”
What is your favorite and/or proudest contribution to the WordPress open source project?
My favourite contribution to the WordPress open source project and the one that makes me most proud of myself is undoubtedly having founded the WordPress Ancona Meetup Group and still being its organiser since 2015.
I live in a village in a small province, where the sharing mindset is still so little practised and where there is a strong belief that technology is a male preserve and women are not sufficiently capable. The challenge is indeed to continue organising meetings, despite the still unsharing mentality that dominates in this corner of the world.
But there is a bigger challenge: trying to involve more other women, even if only attending meetups (very often I am the only woman present), giving them a safe space to share their valuable contribution, whatever it may be, growing the WordPress and women in tech community,here in the Marche region and in Ancona.
An open source project is really ‘open’ if it gives a safe space to anyone (not only women, but all people who are diverse from the norm), I really believe in that.
During the pandemic, I discovered myself as a feminist and embraced intersectional feminism. I am a middle-aged woman, I have had 2 sons, and I feel strongly about the mission to help young women break free from interiorised patriarchy and empower themselves in the world also through WordPress and technology.
I have started thinking that I have to do something really concrete to make this happen: trying to bring more women as speakers to the meetups, in the first place. I am already organising myself to advertise the meetups physically in university and other places where there is a high presence of women (trade unions for female workers, LGBTQIA+ cultural clubs and associations, etc.). Will I succeed?”
What would it mean to you to attend WordCamp US 2022?
Attending the ‘WordCamp of all WordCamps,’ through the Kim Parsell Scholarship would be a great honour. It would have great value for my small local community and even greater value for me as a woman and a professional.
First of all, I would bring back so many experiences and inspirations to sow and grow in my small community; I would be the testimonial by telling the community about this experience, maybe organising a meetup with the theme ‘women in tech,’ it could already be an extra step to involve other women to participate and contribute to WordPress.
As a WordCamp Organiser, then, I could also observe closely how things work at a large WordCamp and learn a lot.
From a personal point of view, it would mean seeing the constancy of organising meetups and inviting people to collaborate in the open source project recognised. In all these years, frequenting the Italian community I have come to know and make my own many important values such as the importance of collaboration, of giving dignity and space to everyone, or that everyone has something to learn and everyone has something to teach.
I have not stopped believing that WordPress helps people (and in my opinion, women even more) to evolve, to claim their dignity, to occupy their own space and to succeed, as it has been for me.”
Please join us in congratulating these wonderful contributors and welcoming them to WordCamp US 2022!