Speakers

Amir Helzer

Amir is the founder of OnTheGoSystems, a company that makes WPML, Types, Views, CRED, a bunch of other WordPress plugins and the translation service ICanLocalize. Amir started using WordPress since 2007 as a CMS for his business, which served clients in 6 languages. After different attempts, he decided to start his own solution and WPML project was born.

Amir will be participating in a session on Multilingual WordPress and will also be happy to talk with anyone who wants to hear about multilingual e-commerce for global businesses.

Andrew Nacin

Andrew Nacin is a lead developer of WordPress, wrangling contributions, spearheading initiatives, advising new development, and squashing bugs. He led the last major release of WordPress, 3.5, which overhauled media handling. He is also a member of the core security team. Just as many PHP core developers have with PHP, he and WordPress have a love-hate relationship. If he thought it was perfect, he would find another job. He feels strongly about the core philosophies of WordPress, among them “decisions, not options” — software should be opinionated in lieu of burdening the user with too many options. He works for WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg at Audrey Capital, where he is primarily tasked with working on WordPress core and keeping the lights on at WordPress.org. He resides in downtown Washington, D.C., with his wife. You can follow him on Twitter at @nacin.

Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko

Rarst is cynical, sleepy, and much into computers. He remembers DOS and the days when the Internet came in nightly dial-up packages. He has brushed through several industries (from airplane engineering to helpdesk systems), many programming languages, and circled back to web development. This time on WordPress platform. You can often find him on WordPress Stack Exchange where he helps out with all sorts of questions related to WordPress.

Rarst will be talking about “Better Site Stacks with Composer”

 

Arnstein Larsen

Arnstein Larsen is the COO of Metronet, the leading WordPress development company in Norway. Metronet has taken the lead in building the Norwegian WP community and Arnstein has been co-organizing the first two WordCamps held in Norway (WC Norway 2012 and 2013) and the WordPress Meetups in Oslo running for two years time. Arnstein has a broad business background from Telecommunications and IT and has held a variety of management positions both in Norway and across Europe.

Boone Gorges

Boone Gorges is an independent software developer and consultant, specializing in WordPress plugins. He is a Lead Developer for BuddyPress, and oversees development on such projects as Commons In A Box, Anthologize, and Participad. Boone is a former academic, and most of his clients are universities and other non-profit institutions. In his spare time, he is a competitive crossword solver, a jazz pianist, and an afficianado of pizza and barbecue. He lives in Queens, NY with his wife and son.

Brad Williams

Brad is the co-founder of WebDevStudios.com, a co-host on the DradCast podcast, and the co-author of Professional WordPress (1E & 2E) and Professional WordPress Plugin Development. Brad is also one of the organizers of the Philadelphia WordPress Meetup Group and WordCamp Philly.

Bram Duvigneau

Bram is a freelance software developer and accessibility consultant from Arnhem, the Netherlands.
Being blind from birth, he’s able to explain accessibility related issues in a way that make sense to developers.
While not coding, tinkering with technology or doing other geeky stuff, he likes to walk with his dog.

David Coveney

David Coveney doesn’t really like to talk about himself (no, really), but people like biographies. It’s best to call me a dinosaur, having started my IT career in the 80’s working on mainframe computers. Consequently I’ve seen the cycles of software technology as we continue to try and make things better through code. I run interconnect/it, a WP development firm in Liverpool, UK which is perhaps notable for developing The Spectator’s new site, Nottingham University’s many and prolific blogs, building CGIAR’s website as well as lots of other websites that have helped clients cut costs and get on with their work.

Oh, and I accidentally wrote a useful but dangerous little search/replace script that became crazy popular even though it was one of the smallest bits of work in my career!

In my spare time I used to race cars, go travelling and ride motorbikes. Occasionally combining these interests where possible. But now I have two toddlers in my life, so mostly I just go home and laugh with them whilst otherwise concentrating on building a business.

Dre Armeda

Dre Armeda, CISSP is the CEO and Co-Founder of Sucuri Inc. Sucuri is a security company concentrating on malware prevention, monitoring, alerting, and cleanup for websites.

Dre is a co-host on the worlds most popular WordPress podcast, The DradCast and is a two time lead organizer of WordCamp San Diego.

Dre is a Harley enthusiast, and a Chargers fan that trains in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He wears many hats, and loves tacos. Dre is infatuated with WordPress, UX/UI, and web security. Dre’s hope is to help make the web a safer place!

Follow @dremeda on Twitter, or say hi at dre.im.

Elisabeth Hölzl

Elisabeth Hölzl, mother of two, lover of all geeky stuff, is Certified TYPO3 Integrator and slowly but surely feeling at home in the WordPress universe. Elisabeth has a background of engineering science. That’s where she learned about core principles of coding and finding your way with ssh and the likes.

Apart from command line tools and figuring out strange patterns she loves to communicate and be the mediator between the tech world and its users. With Kirsten Schelper she has been building quite a few web projects, mostly on WordPress.

Floor Drees

I moved I’m originally from The Netherlands, but I moved to Vienna, Austria 2 years ago. I occasionally organize Rails Girls events like in Rotterdam in January this year and in The Hague, September later this year. I work as a tech reporter for inventures.eu and as a developer evangelist at usersnap.com. Additionally I’m the co-organizer of the monthly vienna.rb and WordPress user group meetups in Vienna.

After working as a community manager for over 5 years I missed ‘making stuff’ and I started learning programming in August last year. Now that I’m confident with the tech talk, I search for ways to optimize life for my former colleagues in social media and blogging.

Frank Bültge

Frank Bültge is engineer, software architect, dad, mountaineer and cyclist. He develops and supports solutions, primarily with SAP Business Software at Carl Zeiss AG and helps companies make WordPress-based applications and solutions with a great team at Inpsyde GmbH. Frank has worked with WordPress since 2005 and has since developed over 50 free plugins and themes, written books and DVDs about WordPress. He is also co-founder of Inpsyde GmbH and MarketPress – a marketplace for WordPress plugins & themes.

He will present his solution to create multilingual sites with WordPress, without changing the database structure, using a default install and no mandatory dependencies to plugins or themes.

Frederick Townes

Frederick Townes was the Founding Chief Technical Officer of Mashable, one of the top independent media sites worldwide and is currently the Senior Technical Advisor.

As a search / social media marketer and WordPress consultant, Frederick’s projects typically include WordPress as a core element. One of his largest contributions to the WordPress community was his web performance optimization framework W3 Total Cache.

Since 2003 his agency W3 EDGE has assisted startups and well-known brands like: ASOS, Adorama, AIGA, AT&T, Brian Solis, Center for Disease Control, Constant Contact, CVS Pharmacy, Envato, Hyatt, Jonathan Snook, Kodak, Hubspot, Lord & Taylor, Mashable, Microsoft, Neil Patel, Pearsonified, R.E.I., Sanyo, Sherwin Williams, Smashing Magazine, Southwest Airlines, Staples, Sony, Weight Watchers, Yahoo, Yoast and others.

He is also a serial web entrepreneur and technologist. One of his recent projects, W3 MARKUP, launched in 2007, was acquired after only 11 short months prior to his moving to Florence, Italy in 2008. Frederick currently splits time in Boston still where he focuses on his latest project Placester as a co-founder.

Hanni Ross

Hanni fell in love with WordPress a decade ago, and hasn’t looked back.

This love led her to build the Happiness Team at Automattic, which she subsequently led, engineering the Happiness of WordPress.com users and Automatticians alike over the course of almost six years.

Fiercely passionate about law which has studied in both the UK and France, she is now chasing her dream, preparing for the New York Bar exam and studying for a masters in I.P. law. Hanni can often be found with her head buried in a judgment, book, or alternatively avidly watching The West Wing, or indeed any Sorkin creation.

She loves to run, can’t sing, is currently a nomad, keeps a weblog which is imaginatively entitled Hanni Ross, asks too many questions, and can often be found with a cup of coffee in hand.

Joost de Valk

Joost is the lead developer of some of the most popular WordPress plugins available, most notably his WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. Next to managing the consultancy and premium plugin business at Yoast.com, he’s also an SEO  consultant for major brands like Disney and the Guardian.

Kim Gjerstad

One of 4 partners of MailPoet (formerly Wysija), a freemium newsletter plugin for WordPress.

His talk will be on the making of the plugin, and its freemium model.

I’m the project & product manager for the plugin. I like UX, business dev, community, & writing.

Where from? I’m Canadian, Norwegian, born American. Montréal is really my home town.

Where have I been? I’ve worked in Montréal, Paris, Kinshasa, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and now Lille.

Kirsten Schelper

Kirsten Schelper is a web designer and passionate about all things WordPress. She holds a degree in communication design. Being interested in the web and the technologies that influence it, WordPress got into her focus a couple of years ago. The fascination never ceased and she quickly learned to develop her own themes.

In the beginning of 2011 she started the German speaking blog http://die-netzialisten.de where she writes about web design, WordPress and all kind of things related to it.

Marko Heijnen

I’m a WordPress developer and always work on WordPress related projects. In some cases I build mobile apps that connect to WordPress. Besides that I’m a core contributor and GlotPress lead developer. Contribute back to awesome projects like that is what I love to do.

Matt Mullenweg

Co-founder, WordPress; founder, Automattic

Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder of the open-source blogging platform, WordPress, the most popular publishing platform on the web, and the founder of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Jetpack. Additionally, Matt is a principal and founder of Audrey Capital, an investment and research company.

Matt got his start in technology working at CNET Networks as a senior product manager. He went on to found Global Multimedia Protocols Group, an experimental metamemetics company, to develop open data formats. He has been recognized for his leadership and success by Forbes, BusinessWeek, INC., PC World, and Vanity Fair.

Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. Matt splits time between Houston, New York, and San Francisco.

Mike Schroder

I grew up as a cross-culture kid, spending my early teens in Spain, and learning much Spanish as a result. Now in Los Angeles, I work at DreamHost on WordPress — both on keeping WordPress running as well as possible at DreamHost, and also on WordPress core, as a contributor. While not coding, you can find me hand-grinding and brewing a good cup of coffee, or heading out for a nice sail on a long weekend.

Miriam Schwab

Miriam is the Friendly CEO of illuminea, a Jerusalem-based WordPress development and online marketing agency.

Seven years ago, Miriam set out to find the ideal CMS for illuminea’s clients and fell in love with WordPress. The rest is history: 100+ WordPress sites built, three WordCamps organized, 200+ posts written on WPGarage, and many bagels eaten (for coding inspiration, of course).
illuminea is recognized as an Enterprise-level WP provider on Code Poet. Our team speaks fluent English, Hebrew and Russian, and our clients can be found around the world. In addition to working directly with clients, illuminea also partners with other WP agencies on an outsourced basis.

Mónica Guerra Leiria

Mónica is a Portuguese designer who loves nothing more than to deliver beautiful and functional websites tailored to her clients’ needs. She has been involved with design in one form or another since 1997 and has given up subdivisions in favor of simply considering herself a designer. Working with WordPress exclusively for designerblogs.com on the Genesis framework has allowed her to stretch her creative wings while learning something new every day.

A self-confessed geek, when she isn’t designing she can be found roleplaying, playing boardgames or reviewing videogames at www.rubberchickengames.com and she has a rather neglected blog at monicaguerraleiria.com.

Naoko Takano

Naoko has been involved in the Japanese WordPress community since 2003. She has helped translate software, written books, and either organized or spoke at several WordCamps (8 Japanese cities hosted total of 13 WordCamps so far) — mostly while living in Michigan. She now calls Tokyo her home, and works for Automattic as a Happiness Engineer. Naoko will be sharing tips for successful localization and growing local community.

Nikolay Bachiyski

Nikolay is a long-time WordPress core contributor, lives in Bulgaria, works for Automattic, blogs at extrapolate.me, and has a bear.

Noel Tock

Noel is Swiss web guy that enjoys building solutions online. He is a Partner at Human Made, a top tier WordPress agency (and VIP Partner). As Chief Product Officer, he oversees the product portfolio and acts as liaison for the Swiss client market.

He’s a jack of all trades, master of none, usually bouncing between project management and front-end development. The projects he enjoys working most on target small businesses and the long tail, democratizing opportunity so that smaller players have a shot at being successful online (happytables & Clickbank Powered both being excellent examples).

Ptah Dunbar

Yarr, ahoy mateys! Cap’n Pirate Dunbar here — a WordPress, BuddyPress, and bbPress core contributor and PHP 5.3 Zend Certified Engineer. The Cap’n works with an amazing team at LiveNinja.com, a WebRTC based video PaaS (also powered by WordPress and BuddyPress) for experts to get paid for their know-how. Depending on the season, the Cap’n resides in sunny Miami Beach, FL or in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Europe. He is actively involved in the PHP community supporting local meetup groups and helps co-organize WordCamp Miami annually. You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook.

Remkus de Vries

Remkus is a self-described enthusiastic WordPress user, developer, themer and aficionado from Fryslân, The Netherlands. Back in 2007 he founded his WordPress specialist company ForSite Media and has since been expanding in all areas WordPress. Remkus blogs about WordPress at remkusdevries.com and WP Realm and can be found on Twitter at @DeFries.

Roció Valdivia

Roció is a Spanish Computer Engineer in love with Free Software, technology, travelling and personal challenges. She’s part of the Technical Department at Mecus, where she specializes in BuddyPress, a tool to develop social networks. Along with the rest of the team, she’s a WordPress Consultant, part of the Spanish translation team at GlotPress, organises the WordPress Sevilla meetup and WordCamp. She has extensive experience with WordPress and BuddyPress plugins, themes development and improvement, and is one of the authors of “WordPress para Dummies”, the Spanish version of “WordPress for Dummies”, published November 2012. She’s currently a consultant and a lecturer at conferences and seminars on WordPress and BuddyPress.

Samuel “Otto” Wood

Samuel Wood, better known to the WordPress community as “Otto”, lives in Memphis, Tennessee, the Birthplace of Rock and Roll. Otto is a Tech Ninja at Audrey Capital, Matt Mullenweg’s investment and research company. When not hacking away at WordPress or the WordPress.org website, he spends his time homebrewing or scuba diving or searching out the best BBQ he can find, which he will always say is in Memphis.

Sara Rosso

Sara is VIP Global Services Manager at Automattic (WordPress.com & more), and as part of her job with the WordPress.com VIP team, she works at discovering and sharing WordPress success stories with the world. She has worked in technology since 1996 for companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Ogilvy, and she’s been using WordPress since 2006. Sara is also a writer, photographer, technology lover, and business & digital strategist. Originally from California, she’s been living in Italy for ten years and is currently in Milan.

Scott Basgaard

Scott Basgaard lives somewhere in the mountains of beautiful Southern Norway. Born and raised in New Jersey, he moved there to live with his wife Renate. He loves all things WordPress and organized the first WordCamp Norway in 2012. Scott makes a living under his alter ego, Scotty B, who is a Support Ninja over at WooThemes specializing in WooCommerce. He’s passionate about helping others and recently organized a 24-hour-long WordPress event, which was free for community, called WordSesh.

Simon Dickson

Simon Dickson spent ten years working in UK government and media companies, growing increasingly frustrated at the slow pace of in-house web development. He went freelance in 2007, inspired by the possibilities of working with open source generally, and WordPress in particular. Simon persuaded the UK Prime Minister’s office to switch to WordPress in 2008, with a number of national ministries following suit. Together with regular core contributor Simon Wheatley, he founded Code For The People as a specialist WordPress development agency in 2012. Current clients include the Rolling Stones, Oxford University, Riverdance, Kew Gardens and Automattic.

Simon Wheatley

I am a WordPress developer, and have been since 15th Dec 2005 (when I made my first commit to my SVN server for a WordPress project). I’ve contributed code to the core project for many versions over the last 5 years or so, and was honoured to be invited to attend the first WordPress Community Summit in 2012.

Last year I developed a new WordPress plugin, Babble, with the aim of providing a modern WordPress plugin which could efficiently display translated content for a WordPress website. Babble is in action at Oxford University’s FreeSpeechDebate.com, which presents content in thirteen different languages.

I now work exclusively on WordPress, with my colleagues at Code For The People, for clients like The Rolling Stones, the UK Government, Oxford University and Stephen Fry.

Tammie Lister

Tammie Lister is a designer who specialises in creating communities. She’s passionate about community design and mixing in psychology with design and development to create sites that make sense to humans. Over the years she’s been lucky enough to create varied projects with great clients under her company logicalbinary.com. She is a contributor to both BuddyPress and WordPress. Tammie spends most of her time living in themes and has a book due out soon about BuddyPress theme development.

Tom Willmot

Tom Willmot (@tomwillmot) is the co-founder of Human Made Limited, a WordPress development company specialising in high-end WordPress; and co-director of happytables, a website solution for restaurants. He’s been developing with WordPress since version 1.2 and maintains several WordPress plugins which combined have over half a million downloads. He also co-developed WP Remote, a maintenance tool for people supporting lots of WordPress sites. When not coding he loves to travel with his fiancé Leanne and can often be found at the local climbing wall working at working on his bouldering grade.

Vitaly Friedman

Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and does not give up easily. From Minsk in Belarus, he studied computer science and mathematics in Germany, discovered a passion for typography, writing and design. After working as a freelance designer and developer for 6 years, he co-founded Smashing Magazine, a leading online magazine dedicated to design and web development. Vitaly is the author, co-author and editor of all Smashing books. He currently works as editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine in the lovely city of Freiburg, Germany.

Vladimir Prelovac

Vladimir Prelovac is an entrepreneur, pliot and a dad. Vladimir got involved with WordPress in 2007 and has since authored over 20 WordPress plugins, a book on WordPress plugin development and is the founder of ManageWP. He wants to change the world, but still doesn’t have the source code.