An Open Letter to Matt Mullenweg

An Open Letter to Matt Mullenweg

Dear Matt,

I hope everything is going well for you. And thank you so much for creating WordPress. Which has helped to advance web technology to where it’s now.

I am Ganga Kafle (KafleG), one of the representatives of the WordPress themes team. Also, a member of WordPress Nepal, one of the oldest and most active WordPress communities in the World.

We organized our first WordCamp i.e. ‘WordCamp Nepal’ in 2012 and since then we’ve successfully hosted 13 WordCamps in 5 different cities of Nepal. Also, we have conducted several online and offline WordPress meetups across the country. In fact, our community was active even during the Coronavirus pandemic, conducting workshops and meetups online on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, we lost our most treasured member of WordPress Nepal, Mr. Ujwal Thapa, due to COVID complications while undergoing treatment. 1st June 2022 is the 1 year death anniversary of the late Mr. Thapa. 

We recently celebrated the 19th Anniversary of WordPress, and I missed him gravely. Additionally, I recalled every one of the occasions we were together. Thank you Ujwal Thapa for everything.

Remembering Ujwal Thapa WordPress

Mr. Thapa started working in WordPress in 2006. Also, he advocated the use of the WordPress platform with great enthusiasm. He truly believed in the philosophy of open-source WordPress and the great potential it could offer to youths in Nepal. In fact, he introduced me to the WordPress platform, when I was in college, back in 2012. 

Like myself, he helped many young people to learn about WordPress, be a part of the WordPress community, and make a living out of it. Thousands of Nepalese have benefited from his assistance in joining the WordPress community and finding work.

He was an energetic individual with a vision of changing the lives of grassroots people and the nation. Some of his notable fits in his entrepreneurial journey, he co-founded “Entrepreneurs for Nepal,” back in 2008, with the aim of networking, idea sharing, and finding helping hands to the upcoming entrepreneurs of Nepal. 

In addition, he started another movement called, “Nepal Khulla Cha” in 2010 to combat the country’s frequent shut down due to political instability. This event resulted in the minimization of strikes. 

After the failure of building the new Constitution for Nepal for 4 straight years, Mr. Thapa along with thousands of concerned citizens started a political movement to clean up the Nepali political scenario. With the main aim of restoring “common sense” back to the Nepalese population. The same movement led to the establishment of BibekSheel Nepali Party, now known as “BibekSheel Sajha Party”.    

Mr. Thapa was born in the western part of Nepal, Syangjha. He completed his school education at Budhanilkantha School, Kathmandu. After that, he moved to the United States, to become an Astrophysicist, but instead graduated as a multimedia web designer from Bennington College. 

After coming back to Nepal in 2001, he worked as a conflict resolution trainer during the civil war for a couple of years. Following that, in 2003 he founded his website designing firm, Digital Max Solutions (DMS). This step led him to shape the IT industry in Nepal, building a strong team of employees who became entrepreneurs themselves. 

We at the Nepali WordPress community highly regard Mr. Thapa for his contribution to introducing the platform to us in Nepal. WordPress Biratnagar (WordPress community of Biratnagar city) announced a “Ujwal Thapa Memorial Scholarship” in which the organizers will fully sponsor those interested to attend WordCamp. The scholarship will focus on specially-abled and lower-income attendees. 

Credit: WordPress Biratnagar

I talked with few WordPress community leader about Ujwal Thapa.

Utsav Singh Rathour (Community leader of WordPress Kathmandu) said about Ujwal Thapa, “Ujjwal Thapa was what I would call a leader. Someone who would lead from the front and then hand over to someone capable when he thought it was time to pass on. That is what he did with the WordPress community of Nepal. He made a community that in the literal sense has changed so many lives.”

Shiva Shanker Bhatta (AF themes founder and community leader) said, “I met Ujwal Dai for the first time at WordCamp in 2015. An annual gathering of 300-400 WordPress developers, where everyone shared their knowledge and inspired others to move forward.

He added, “I had never seen a group of people working on any of Nepal’s platforms meet and get to know each other before. It was later discovered that this platform was introduced to Nepal in 2012 by a team that included Ujjal Dai. As a result, the knot has grown into a large community that supports WordPress, and hundreds of companies and thousands of Nepalese people have found work”.

By 2022, I have been running one of the acclaimed WordPress companies myself, and I have organized and spoken at 5-7 national-international WordCamps, spreading what I have learned from the WordPress community. I believe the path is illuminated by the light of the same lamp that Ujwal Dai lit.”

Likewise, the WordPress community of Nepal wants to honor his legacy in the international WordPress community. We can do so by naming one of the upcoming WordPress versions to his name. This act will pay respect to his contribution to the WordPress community and will help us remember what a great human being he was.

So, I humbly request you to consider this request from the Nepali WordPress community. 

Regards,
KafleG

One response to “An Open Letter to Matt Mullenweg”

  1. KafleG Avatar

    Now, you can see Ujwal Thapa name here in the remembers page, https://wordpress.org/remembers/

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