The W3C pulls all of its working groups together once a year at a big conference called TPAC. The 2025 edition was held in Kobe . I went to Japan a week early and spent time in Osaka and Tokyo before making my way to Kobe for the conference.
The conference was held at the KCC on Port Island, so each day I took Kobe’s ポート
I wear a lot of hats at TPAC: Apple’s AC Rep and head of delegation, AB member, chair, participant in many WGs. So it’s quite an intense week for me and I’ve only captured a small fraction of the experience below. Mostly missing from this recap are countless insightful conversations in hallways, on coffee breaks, and over lunch and dinner.
I took のぞみ21号 to Kobe on Sunday, arriving midday. After dropping my bags off at my hotel—the Tokyu REI near 三ノ宮駅—I had a wander around town. I paid my respects to 稚日女尊 at 生田神社 and enjoyed a cappuccino at Beyond Coffee Roasters before heading to a local developer meetup which was timed to coincide with TPAC. I particularly enjoyed Paul’s presentation on media latency. After the meetup Dan, Elena, Marcos, Nina, and I had dinner and drinks together.
My TPAC kicked off Monday morning with an AB meeting, at which we set out to plan our week. Most of us were there: 李安琪, Brent, Dan, 丁蔚, Elena, Emma, Hidde, 五十嵐さん, 太田さん, and 徐嵩. Amy, Avneesh, and Max couldn’t be there in person, but called in for various sessions.
One big project for the AB this week was to visit every working group to gather feedback on the W3C Process Document. The AB is formally charged with stewardship of W3C’s process, and this year we’re kicking off a larger effort to streamline it. In addition to meeting with various groups, we also lead a breakout session on Wednesday, Tell Us What's Wrong with the Process, where a bunch of folk shared insightful thoughts about what works and what doesn’t in the current Process.
Later on Monday I attended Matthew’s breakout about some changes to how accessibility reviews are done. (He and I overlapped on the TAG for a bit.)
Nick, Ricky, and I had a simple but yummy bowl of ramen for dinner. Afterwards Aki (my Ecma partner in crime) and I checked out Grace Lily, Kobe’s lesbian bar, which is great. しゅん and 侑子, the owners, are very kind.
I spent a bunch of time on Tuesday with the Timed Text WG. 五十嵐さん and I gathered Process feedback from them, and Dana presented our team’s work to update WebKit in response to recent FCC changes. We had a lively discussion of our approach. Alan and I had a pint together after the meeting wrapped, and afterwards I had dinner with Andy, Dana, and Tim.
On Wednesday I attended the Advisory Committee & Community Session, and many breakouts:
- Accelerating the adoption of modern web features
- Enabling Effective AC Participation
- Future of the Open Web
- Permissions and pre-prompts: Providing good context to users
- Fixing HTML element references (IDREFs) on the Web
That night was the evening reception. Afterwards Alice, Aki, Ricky, Zoë, and I visited Grace Lily together.
I spent time in both the CSS and WHATWG meetings on Thursday. I was also able to spend a few minutes in the Devices and Sensors/Web Applications joint meeting. I went to PLH’s breakout, Navigating the Future, later that afternoon.
On Thursday night I took Apple’s TPAC contingent out for dinner, to thank them for all of their hard work over the week. We had a private room at 大長今 and enjoyed many rounds of Kobe beef. I found myself wondering, more than once, if anybody in Kobe knows what a vegetable is.
Dan and I visited the Privacy WG Friday morning to get their thoughts on the W3C Process Document. My TPAC wrapped up the same way it had started, with an AB meeting, which was followed by dinner and karaoke with Seth and the AB, and then more drinks and karaoke with Diego, Elena, and Marcos.
After checking out of our hotel Saturday morning, we met Alice, Zoë, and Sarah at 新神戸駅 and took the 神戸布引ロープウェイ up the mountain together.
We went our separate ways after making our way back down the mountain. Eryn and I had lunch before catching a ferry across Osaka Bay to KIX. We flew home on UA34.
In addition to being a really intense work week, TPAC is a family reunion of sorts. It’s the one time each year where I get to see many dear friends. It’s such a special thing.