8 Years of Being AWSM!

It’s that time of the year when we pause to reflect on how far we have come and grown as a team. It’s been 8 long years since we started our journey as Awsm Innovations. From the early days to where we are now, we’ve tackled challenges and celebrated every single achievement together as a team.

Our journey has always been about working together, supporting each other, and having fun on the way.

All Aboard—Off We Go!

The celebrations are endless here, with each moment better than the last, and it was clear that the Happiness Team’s preparations were in full swing for the eighth-anniversary celebrations. As always, there were hurdles to overcome, with the monsoon threatening to cast a shadow over our plans.

But even Mother Nature was kind to us as we escaped the bustling city and set sail to the backwaters of Alappuzha.

Ahoy! We Turned Eight! Time to Celebrate

On June 28, we kicked off the celebrations by embarking on a scenic houseboat ride through the enchanting backwaters of Alappuzha. The serene waterways mesmerized us and the smiles and laughter set the perfect backdrop for this wonderful day.

Our CEO, Aravind Ajith, took us through our collective achievements, reflecting on how far we have grown as a team and offering a glimpse into our future plans. Our Project Manager, Nandhu Raj, also gave a rundown of the projects and how we have tackled them effortlessly.

We then shifted gears to celebrate our successes. We distributed prizes to the winners of our Chaya and Charcha and fitness challenge.

We cut the cake and later challenged each other to pushups. The food was amazing, and we enjoyed every morsel.

We then headed to our hotel, Lake Canopy. The location was picture-perfect and reflected our festive mood.

Our Top Eight Achievements

We made several envious achievements in these eight years, including:

  • Great Place to Work® certification
  • Envato Elite Author badge
  • 94% contribution to Five For the Future. Ranked among the top 10 global contributors, we contribute across 9 teams.
  • 83% of employees have Core Contributor badges, thanks to the WP Core Contribution Hackathon we have every first Thursday of the month.
  • Core contributions in all WordPress releases from Version 6.1 to 6.6.
  • Organized/sponsored WordCamp Kerala (2023), WordCamp Mumbai (2023), WordCamp Kochi (2019) and Trivandrum meetups. Attended and partnered with WordCamp Asia 2023. Aravind contributed as a Mentor to the second cohort of the WordPress Contributor Mentorship program (2024 Q1). Sarath won 2 prizes at the WordPress Photo Festival 2024
  • Sharing WordPress tips, guides and news through WP-Content.co, The WP Week Newsletter and The WP Week Podcast. Even Matt has commented on our articles!
  • Released 9 amazing plugins & 2 themes
Source: The Repository Issue #213

We are expecting even brighter days for our Awsm family with more contributions and more achievements. The regular meetups remind us of what we have accomplished and what we are capable of achieving together.