Strengthening Community Engagement at TPAC 2025: looking back at the IE & inclusion Funds

For the 8th year in a row, W3C was able to coordinate an Inclusion Fund for TPAC 2025, our annual conference, and for the first time we expanded it to include a W3C Invited Experts support fund. The goal is to reduce barriers for participants who are contributing positively to the work of W3C groups, but who require financial support to be more actively involved.

Our criteria this time put the emphasis on established contributors, in particular editors, chairs and those participating in elected bodies. Prioritization continued unchanged: under-represented groups, to improve diversity of background, gender, experiences, expertise and skills.

Of the 67 applications, 26 matched the eligibility criteria, passed our screening, and were approved by our selection committee, so we were able to allocate funding to 13 awardees in the TPAC Inclusion Fund, and 13 awardees in the Invited Expert Support Fund. It was an initial success that we were able to fund almost 4 times as many awards as all previous 7 years combined! But the success did not stop there because the funds worked as intended and were a true enabling program.

There was significant interest from applicants who were overall very diverse, with broad under-represented groups/region/gender representation

• 15 women, 9 men and 2 gender-diverse individuals.
• 12 from Europe (6 economies), 10 from North America (2 from Canada and 8 from the United States) and 4 from Asia Pacific.
• 19 independent experts, 7 employed by W3C members but not able to secure funding support from their employer.
• Several of the experts live with a disability.
• Wide representation of skills and knowledge, with a good mix of technical expertise and UX design expertise, including individuals contributing already to our accessibility, security and privacy work.

This effort is one facet of our ongoing Stakeholder Outreach strategy, as outlined in the 2025-2028 Strategic Objectives and Initiatives, which calls for improving our overall effectiveness through reinforcement of relationships with existing stakeholders as well as new relationships that can help further advance our mission.

TPAC is one known venue where the work of our groups is accelerated. All 26 awardees participated at TPAC 2025 (2 remotely) and from what they told us, they experienced a fulfilling event, and found a way to engage in the work. One participant also received support to attend an elected body meeting earlier in the year.

These are some of the testimonies we received:

“Attending my first W3C TPAC was transformative – The opportunity to present my work during the breakout sessions allowed me to gather actionable feedback from experts now actively feeding into improvements to the Security Considerations section of the specification.”

“TPAC showed me the power of collaborative standardization, and I left inspired to contribute even more actively to building a safer, more resilient web.”

“My first TPAC experience — it was truly memorable and unexpectedly impactful. It was the kind of environment where connections become collaborations, and where showing up in person truly matters.”

“I hope it inspires more people to attend TPAC in person and experience the unexpected possibilities it can open.”

“TPAC was an experience I’ll never forget! – Working in person with experts from around the world allowed me to collaborate on accessibility challenges across content authoring, browser, and assistive technology implementations. I’m excited to bring that knowledge back to my team.”

Let me invite you to read a bit more about their experiences in their own words, like Niklas Merz and Amir Sharif.

We made some time in an already packed schedule to gather for a group photo and share lunch. As I got to know a little bit about them during those conversations, I also got reminded about the relevance of this program and the positive change it brings to the lives of people in our vast community and how gathering experts from around the world enables the right issues to surface. They generously shared their views about how to strengthen the program and areas for improvement. We are also conducting an initial review of the program, from application to delivery, so that we can do more and we can do better. None of that would have been possible without the support from our sponsors, and the Events Team.

We are looking forward to strengthening the Community Engagement program next year to support individuals passionate about the future of the web that otherwise will not be able to fully engage. We welcome support via direct donations, corporate social responsibility through Benevity and sponsorship. I invite you to generously support this effort in 2026.