Yoast Care fund: An interview with Mobeen Abdullah

Today we’re getting to know Mobeen Abdullah, who was nominated for the Yoast Care fund by Nidhi Jain. Nidhi nominated Mobeen for his commitment to the WordPress community in Pakistan. Contributing as a plugin developer, translator and core contributor, Mobeen also has a knack for motivating and inspiring others in the community. He organizes Meetups, speaks at WordCamps, and was part of the organizing team at WordCamp Islamabad 2018 and 2019. In Nidhi’s words: “Mobeen personifies what the WordPress community is all about. He is ever positive, ever helpful and eager to help.” Sounds great! So, let’s ask Mobeen some questions about his love for WordPress:

Hi Mobeen! Why and when did you start contributing?
When I started my career as a freelancer in 2012, I was already working as a front-end developer. I started my web developer career as a front-end developer with my really good friend Aamer Shahzad. At the time when I joined forces with him, he was developing free themes for wordpress.org in his free time. He really inspired me about open-source contributions. Also, I used to see Ahmad Awais‘ open-source contributions in WordPress a lot, and all this always inspired me so, I started doing my part by contributing to WordPress’s core, translations, local WordPress Meetups, and most WordCamps here in Pakistan.

Talking about my very first contribution, it was back in 2015, when I needed a widget for a project in which the image must have bootstrap classes and some animations for showing ads in the sidebar. I tried to find any solution for it online, but couldn’t find any so I made the “Animated Featured Image” plugin and released it as an open-source project for the WordPress community.

Who is your WordPress hero?
A really good friend of mine, who motivated me to learn new things other than my first love of UI & front-end development. He was always there for me, to help me whenever I was stuck, from learning WordPress to professional Themes, Plugins, and Gutenberg Blocks development. That person is Aamer Shahzad, a hero and a true inspiration for me, always.

Who is your WordPress mentor?
I am lucky enough to have many amazing people as my mentors, who not only helped me grow professionally but personally as well. These are the folks in no particular order: Nouman Yaqoob, whenever I needed advice about the content strategy and blogging. Fahad Murtaza, whenever I needed suggestions related to providing WordPress services. Especially, Muhammad Adnan and Umar Draz, whenever I needed guidance about making the WordPress products and business aspects of running a web development agency. I am indeed forever grateful to them.

What would you love to do in the future?
I have hands-on experience building WordPress products while working as a Full-stack WordPress developer in different firms. By using that experience I have gained over the years, I am looking forward to building amazing WordPress products like a Lightweight WordPress Theme, Gutenberg Blocks Collection Plugin, and many more plugins in the near future.

Where can people find you? Online, WordCamps, other meetups?
I am personally reachable at the local WordPress Meetups/WordCamps and use Twitter, where I use the handle @mobeenabdullah, as well as LinkedIn. I am also very much responsive to my email, which you can feel free to reach me at.

Do you know someone who’s as committed to the (local) WordPress community as Mobeen? Nominate them for our Yoast Care fund so we can give them the recognition they deserve! We would be very thankful for your help in finding those lovely people who deserve to be put in the spotlight and get the Yoast Care fund.