Ruth Kalinka receives the Yoast Care fund for her contribution to the WordPress community

Meet Ruth Kalinka, a valued member of the WordPress Community Team! Her commitment and valuable contributions to the community are why Michelle Frechette nominated her for the Yoast Care fund. Let’s learn more about this passionate WordPress enthusiast.

Nominator Michelle Frechette: “Ruth Kalinka is a mover and shaker when it comes to getting things done! I’ve been impressed with how she jumps in to help WordCamps thrive – from speaking at WordCamp San Jose, Costa Rica, to volunteering as an organizer for WordCamp Europe. Her penchant and desire to learn languages other than English is inspirational. In a world where we are a global community, the only thing that can keep us from interacting well is a lack of a common language. Ruth is determined to break down those walls. Ruth is an organizer for WordCamp Europe 2024 and WordCamp Philadelphia 2020. She volunteers regularly for WordCamps (Philadelphia, US, Europe), BarCamp Philly, and Women in Tech Summit Northeast. She is a native English speaker who attends virtual WordCamps and WordPress Meetups in Spanish, Italian, and French.”

Let’s get to know Ruth Kalinka

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

Hi, Ruth! What do you do?

I am a Content Strategist, UX Consultant, Connector, and Coach who helps people communicate effectively, share cultures, and build relationships online and in person to promote products and services. Through photography and writing, I share cross-cultural adventures, both near and far.

I am a polyglot who’s into travel, photography, food, wine, swimming, Latin dance, holistic health, and happiness. I am a native English speaker with intermediate experience in Spanish, French, Italian, and Mandarin Chinese. Additionally, I enjoy learning additional languages as I expand my travels and cultural experiences worldwide.

I have been involved in the WordPress community as an organizer, speaker, volunteer, and Attendee since 2008. I am an organizer for WordCamp Europe 2024 in Torino, Italy – Communications Team, PR Team, and Local Team Bridge.

Why did you start contributing? Could you share your first contribution with us?

My contributions began as a recurring volunteer for WordCamp Philadelphia starting in 2010 – where I helped attendees day and night on our Twitter account – and expanded into WordCamp US when Philadelphia hosted the first two in 2015 and 2016.

That’s how I got started in the international WordPress community. As an enthusiastic local guide, during the conference days and evening activities, I enjoyed helping and getting to know our visitors worldwide. The WordCamp Europe organizers noticed and invited me to become a WCEU volunteer, which I did in 2017. I have been involved with the global community ever since becoming an organizer for WordCamp Europe 2024.

I have also participated in various contributor teams over the years and currently contribute with Polyglots and WordPress TV in Spanish as available.

What contribution or moment are you most proud of?

I am particularly excited about the Torino Travel Guide my team is preparing for WordCamp Europe 2024. When I first started editing the Torino articles from the Local Team, I envisioned more than text. The content about Athens for WCEU 2023 motivated me to keep trying to book the trip. I knew the Torino information would be more useful and engaging with links, photos, and maps.

At first, we didn’t have many photos available, and new legal restrictions in Germany meant we could not embed Google Maps on the WCEU website. Thanks to the collaboration of teammates who embraced this vision, some of whom supplied their photography and tested the public transit details firsthand, we are producing a robust interactive resource for our travelers.

This is the first time WordCamp Europe (and maybe any WordCamp) has produced a set of Google Maps about the host city. Each page of the Torino Travel Guide is linked to a corresponding map that features the destinations mentioned on that page. Each map links to the corresponding article on the WCEU website.

I like to orient myself in maps visually, and I have dozens of digital maps for places worldwide. As soon as this year’s destination was announced in Athens. I started planning for Torino with a personal map that had nearly 100 places before embarking on this travel guide project for WCEU.

While researching Torino, I found that it wasn’t always easy to match place names on the map. Plus, many map locations lacked critical visitor information and links to the official websites. Further, many websites were only available in Italian. Which was a disruptive user experience when leaving the WCEU site in English. This confirmed that we could use our web and communication skills to create a valuable resource for 3000+ travelers to learn about, enjoy, and navigate Torino more easily.

As a team, we’ve added links to help our travelers find details about each destination and understand this historic city’s historical and architectural context. I have created a series of maps corresponding to each article’s destinations. This way, the destinations can be viewed by topic or in conjunction with the other maps as people travel.

As a communication professional, UX designer, polyglot, and traveler, I believe it is crucial to consider accessibility and usability from various angles. While some of the pages in this project are designed for a more leisurely read, the content structure, key logistical details, and maps are designed to support our community in the use case of being a traveler.

Our goal is to provide useful information not only at home before embarking on the trip but also when feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, distracted, disoriented, and time-pressured while traveling. We have also considered the use cases of engaging from a native language that may be neither English nor Italian, needing to show the mobile screen to a local person for quick navigation assistance, having limited mobile battery life or internet access, and more.

What would you love to do in the future?

I have loved working with the Communications, PR, and Local Teams as an Organizer for WordCamp Europe. In my work life, I would love to join a great international team where my unique combination of communication, design, cross-cultural, and people skills will help connect people and move projects forward with human experience in mind. I am particularly interested in polyglot projects, multilingual and multicultural understanding, nomadic work, and the travel industry.

Where may people find you? Online, WordCamps, other meetups?

People can find me online at my website, WordPress.org, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can also find me at WordCamps (WordCamp Europe, WordCamp US, WordCamp Philadelphia, and more) and at online WordPress meetups in English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

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