Ooi Peng Hao receives the Yoast Care fund for his contribution to the WordPress community

Meet Ooi Peng Hao, a valued member of the WordPress community! His commitment and valuable contributions are why Meher Bala nominated him for the Yoast Care fund. Let’s learn more about this passionate WordPress enthusiast.

Nominator Meher Bala: “Peng’s WordPress journey started in 2024, and it didn’t take long for him to dive in, contributing his design skills to WordCamp Johor Bahru soon after. This year, when WordCamp Asia was struggling to find designers, our Design Co-Lead Diana Tupas recommended Peng. She had met him at WordCamp Malaysia 2025. From the moment he joined the WC Asia design team, he’s been nothing short of amazing, consistently showing dedication, creativity, and a strong commitment to delivering great work.”

Let’s get to know Ooi Peng Hao

That’s quite an introduction, Meher! We would love to get to know Peng even better. That’s why we asked him some questions about his work and his passion for WordPress:

Peng, how did you first discover WordPress, and why did you start contributing?

My earliest introduction to WordPress was during my university years, when I needed to build a website with HTML and CSS. At that time, my mother bought a WordPress online course. Out of curiosity, I ended up exploring WordPress via the tutorial courses to build my mum’s website. (Side note: my mum didn’t finish the tutorial, hahahaha.)

My WordPress contribution journey started long after I first learned about WordPress as a software. In late 2024, my friend, Yves Tan, invited me to join the JB WordPress Meetup in our city. He asked me to design the meetup’s very own Wapuu and logo. I joined the exco to help host monthly meetups in Johor Bahru. At that time, Yves also planned to host Johor (Malaysia’s southern state )’s very own WordCamp in 2025.

So what happened? Well, he asked me to join as one of the organizers at WordCamp Johor Bahru 2025, to help design the event materials. At that time, I had zero idea what a WordCamp is, and what it does. So, Yves invited me to WordCamp Malaysia 2024 to experience the conference. I ended up volunteering during the event. Based on what I saw during the event, I identified ideas and areas for improvement that can be implemented at WCJB25. So me and fellow organizers dedicated our 5-6 months’ time to plan for the event, and it turns out a great success exceeding every benchmark we put! For a first-time WordCamp in my state!

17th May 2025, WCJB25 ended. What’s next? I thought I might join the upcoming WCMY25, a national-level event in Kuala Lumpur. Bigger scene, working with people from different states in Malaysia. So I joined in, helping with design and marketing material. A lot of work and hassle went into the team; the event also turned out to be good, with the highest attendance rate to date, and a better venue was secured!

After WCMY25, what’s next? What a coincidence: the same guy, Mr. Yves Tan, happens to be at WordCamp Asia 2026 (WCA26) as an organizer, saying the design team is still looking for help. So I jumped in with both my feet. I enjoyed collaborating with people all around the world, so fun, hectic, cool, driven, and yes, I did attend WCA26 physically at Mumbai!

What a journey in this period! What a time for me to be alive. The journey continues… We’ll see what’s next!

What’s one WordPress-related goal you have for this year?

I thought of contributing to the next WordCamp Asia in Malaysia, so I can step up the challenge this time at the first-ever WCA flagship event in my country. Ever since I was part of the WCJB25 organizing team, I thought I should try a larger scale. Then I joined WCMY25 to learn more about WordCamp as an event, what it actually does, why people are joining this tech event where things are mostly readily available online, what it means to host a community event, and what it means to attend one as an attendee. Something about meeting people all around the world for a common cause fascinates me.

When the opportunity to attend WCA26 came, I grabbed it and learned as much as I could about this community event on a much larger scale. For so long, I’ve been stuck in a small circle myself. Meeting people from all around the world, different races, different backgrounds, heck, I then learned that a lot of the people who are contributing to WordPress aren’t even from a tech background! That is interesting.

Hopefully, at the upcoming WCA27 in Malaysia, I will be part of the organizing team and, this time, contribute to the community by showcasing the beautiful side of my country, Malaysia. To show the people, the culture, THE FOOD, the architecture, and most importantly, the warmth of this community. Perhaps after this, I might take a bit of rest, and apply for a different role in the future; photographer, volunteer, speaker, who knows!

Who is your WordPress hero?

In my personal opinion, it might not be a person. I would say “the concept of open source”. Early in the journey, I joined as an organizer at WordCamps. I always asked myself why people would spend so much blood, sweat, and tears on something that is not profit-driven, to be exact. Why would anybody not choose profit ten out of ten times, just to live better? Then made me ponder why people want open-source products in the first place.

It’s because it’s doing what’s right.

I would say most of the products are closed-source and centralized, which is good for many reasons. I’m not saying closed-source products are a bad idea or should not exist; in fact, many top-tier products in the world are closed-source. Things in it are organized, structured, secure, easy to use, and easy to access. But with closed-source products, open-source software comes in like a breath of fresh air. Somebody willing to see through the extra profit and make things transparent to the public. People can use it and do it their way. That is very, very cool. Those are the acts that rarely appear in the marketplace.

And most importantly, people build on top of it. People collaborate, people find problems, and they find 100x new solutions to it. It became an ecosystem where people come in, coexist, play, work, and experiment. I think that’s why WordPress has remained a popular software for quite some time. The Community from WordPress, the concept of open source.

What’s your favorite WordPress memory or something you’re most proud of?

The experience of organizing WordCamp Johor Bahru 2025 might be one of my favorite memories and the one I am most proud of – my very first WordCamp organizing experience. As I was taking solo role into designing all the material, it was some of the toughest time I gone through, in the hopes of design come to fruition on the event day. It may be a teeny tiny matter for others, but it meant a lot to me. It gives me confidence in my ability to execute tasks and in my skill to create beautiful, functional designs.

During the early stage of organizing WCJB25, I spent a lot of time looking at different WordCamps websites from countries all around the world, and the flagship ones, to learn how people design differently. I learned so much from that. My friend, Yves, at the time reminded me to do better, to execute, and, most importantly, to exceed expectations, even for a small event like this.

I gave myself a target to aim, to design as good as flagship WordCamps. I have gone through the “Design Journey” post from both WCA23 at Bangkok and WCA24 at Taiwan. I also went through some of the design of WCA25 in Manila at that time. I tried my best to deliver the best quality, as customized as possible, to this first WordCamp in my city and my state.

As it turns out, people like my stuff. I felt so appreciated. I initially thought my design would disappoint many people. From most of the feedback and comments, it seems our event exceeded their expectations. And they really like the swags by the way hahahahah. Jersey-looking attendee T-shirts, Wapuu-hoovering tote bags, stickers, and more!

So I would say this is my favorite memory and an experience that stress-tested me.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start contributing to WordPress?

I have 2 answers for this question. One addresses WordPress as software; the other addresses contributions to the WordPress scene.

Learning WordPress as a beginner can be very heavy and daunting. It offers a diverse range of solutions for whatever you need for your website. As someone who rarely used WordPress, I found it frustrating at first. Luckily, because it’s widely used, there are SEAS of tutorials online for almost every problem you encounter. Although I rarely develop websites for end clients, I managed to build a beautiful, functional, and responsive website for a client by simply absorbing knowledge from the web. There are so many resources, plugin alternatives, etc., provided by people who came before us, that lay the foundation of where WordPress is now. So if you are starting out, rest assured: most of the problems you first encounter, someone has already solved. Go find them.

To start contributing to WordPress, I believe there are many ways to do so. You may check out their WordPress.org/contribute page to learn all the fields. For events like Meetups or WordCamps, the experience might be very different for different people. I was invited by others to join, to have the opportunity to contribute in this way. I would advise that if you’re joining WordCamp in any capacity, be sure to have an open mind. To always lower our ego, willing to hear feedback from all the people, from other fellow organizers, to sponsors, to joined volunteers, speakers, and most importantly, attendees. Always be attentive to receiving feedback. That is what I personally did during those last few WordCamps. So that you learn from past mistakes, and the perspective of others, and try to implement better next time. I believe being low ego and attentive to constructive criticism can take us a very long way. Making a fool out of yourself for something you don’t know and being willing to ask questions for a solution can take you further. Hopefully, this can inspire people to contribute and grow as individuals.

Where can people connect with you? Online, at WordCamps, or other meetups?

You may find me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. If you want to meet me in person, I’m one of the exco members of the JB WordPress Meetup; you can meet me here every month.

Thank you for this interview, Peng,and for all of your contributions to the WordPress community! Do you know someone like Ooi Peng Hao who also deserves to be in the spotlight? Go to our Yoast Care page and nominate them right away.