Author Archives: Petya Raykovska

About Petya Raykovska

WordPress Polyglots Team Contributor and mentor. Director of Agency Operations @ Human Made I move a lot, travel for music, love carrot cake and make things happen.

WCEU 2014 Speakers: Kimb Jones

The organising team is happy to welcome fellow WCEU organiser Kimb Jones to the 2014 speakers table.

Kimb is the co-founder of UK-based WordPress agency Make Do. In a previous life he worked in the corporate surroundings of the NHS for over 10 years working in both IT and Marketing. He promises it wasn’t as boring as it sounds (mostly).

He’s been running a local WordPress meetup in Sheffield (UK) for over 5 years and is the main co-ordinator of WordCamp Sheffield. He’s also on the WordCamp Europe co-organising team and has been speaking & involved with WordCamp’s since 2009.

He’ll be speaking at WordCamp Europe on the experiences he faced starting his own WordPress agency and everything in-between.

WCEU 2014 Speakers: Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko

Welcome back to WordCamp Europe to Andrey “Rarst” Savchenko.

Rarst is a computer techie, born and living in Kiev, Ukraine. Sometimes WordPress developer professionally. Tea drinker. Cat person.

He serves as community–elected moderator at WordPress Stack Exchange Q&A site. His idea of productive free time are wild coding projects on the intersection of advanced WordPress development and renaissance of modern PHP.

Spends too much time on Twitter and not enough at his blog (Rarst.net)

A little about his talk:

At what point answering questions about WordPress goes beyond the making conversation and becomes a driver for professional skills and reputation?

Our proficiency at answering questions spans over our work, our ability to learn, and how we are perceived in community. Yet we are rarely purposeful in learning how to benefit from this skill and improve at it.

We can do better than that — to evolve professionally and personally. Let’s talk about how. 

Follow Rarst & WordCamp Europe on Twitter so you don’t miss things like this.

WCEU 2014 Speakers: Hugo Fernandes

Hugo is a designer who went independent 3 years ago to embrace a new journey in his life. Passionate about interactivity and the human behavior, he tries to touch people with his work and words.

He always been fascinated by how our brain processes ideas and how individuals see things, and he’s been deepening his research on creativity – the way how our brain works – and how those two things combined influence our work as designers and developers.

Since then, he’s been speaking about it and also as a motivational speaker in high-schools using creative techniques, which has been a tremendous experience.

Right now he’s at his peak point of research and developed his own theories about creativity and our brains, so the timing to present it at WordCamp Europe is perfect.

More than a theoretical and subjective talk, Hugo will provide a full experience with creative exercises that will help everyone to understand their own brains.

At the end, he will show us that all questions have an answer, and that sometimes 1+1=3.

He’s also a #winelover, so feel free to bring a bottle to chat with him 🙂

In the meantime, you can follow him on twitter at @imhugo or read his words at www.imhugo.com.

WCEU 2014 Speakers: Sara Rosso

We’re delighted to have Automattic VIP Global Services Manager Sara Rosso back to WordCamp Europe. 

Part of Sara’s job with the WordPress.com VIP team is 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 Rome.

Sara is coming to Sofia to talk about “7 Habits of Highly Effective Enterprise WordPress Sites”.

Follow her on Twitter.

Photo credit: Claudio Schwarz

 

WCEU Speakers: Yana Petrova

We’re happy to welcome marketing expert and event organiser Yana Petrova to the WordCamp Europe Speakers table.

Yana is a marketing person and also an event organiser, foodie and traveler. She’s been blogging about food since 2010 and In the past couple of years she’s been organising local technical conferences in Bulgaria including the biggest Bulgarian event dedicated to free software, free culture and knowledge sharing – Open Fest. She’s also a part of the civic hacking organisation Obshtestvo.bg (Society:Bulgaria) that builds independent online tools to help society be closer to the government and the decision making process.

Yana will talk about depression in IT, a problem that seems to be widespread in the industry and still something that people prefer not to talk about. How depression can be recognized, how to find the actual reasons for it and why nobody should be afraid or ashamed to ask for help are some of the main points in her talk.

Stay tuned to WordCamp Europe on  Twitter, Facebook, and Google + . 

WCEU 2014 Speakers: Davide Casali

We’re happy to announce our next WordCamp Europe speaker – Automattic experience director Davide ‘Folletto’ Casali.

Davide is an experience director at Automattic with 11+ years of experience and a hybrid background in design, psychology and technology. He led cross-disciplinary teams of designers and developers, created and advised successfully funded companies and has done coaching and training for global and local organizations (DHL, EY, Atos).

Believing as Leonardo DaVinci reportedly said that “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”, he is specialised in social experience design, behaviour change and motivation applied to interactive and social systems. He has a specific focus in personal growth and leadership coaching to drive successful teams.

During his years of professional experience he led the design of consumer and enterprise services for more than 2 million users worldwide in different markets, industries and countries. He worked with Nokia, Mastercard, Red Bull, Ferrari, Bank of England, Intesa Sanpaolo, Banca Sella, Unicredit, Vodafone, Telecom Italia, Benetton and more.

His designs won the Aretê Award, eCommerce Award for Innovation in Delivery, Samsung GOLD Prize and got listed in the ADI Design Index 2010, the selection for the Compasso D’Oro.

He is an internationally recognised speaker and lecturer (IxDA, LIFT, Creative Mornings, General Assembly, Social Business Summit, Social Media Week, Frontiers of Interaction).

Follow WordCamp Europe on Twitter, Facebook, and Google + 

WCEU Speakers: Tom Nowell

Welcome to #WCEU 2014 to PHP developer Tom Nowell from UK WordPress agency Code For The People.

Born in the UK, and hailing from Manchester, Tom is a developer at Code For The People, a long-time PHP developer, and an elected moderator at WordPress Stack Exchange. Working full time with WordPress, Tom has spoken at several WordCamps in the UK, and sometimes dabbles in computer game AI.

Tom got started with WordPress when his PunBB install collapsed under the weight of AI threads. WordPress to the rescue! After a brief stint running a Cookie Bank tied to an IRC bot, Tom graduated to building WordPress sites professionally.

Tom believes that good quality code is not a subjective opinion, but rather a science that can be measured and calculated with tools. He will be talking about objectively measuring quality, code stink, and bug prevention.

WordCamp Europe is on  Twitter, Facebook, and Google +

WCEU Speakers: Julio Potier

Meet our next WCEU 2014 speaker and the guy who was so eager to share his WordPress know-how with you that he submitted 10 talk proposals!

It’s a pleasure to introduce to you French Security Consultant and PHP developer Julio Potier.

Julio is a freelance consultant and co-founder of WP Media. He’s been working with WordPress every day for the last four years and makes his living using the software. He’s a trainer and an experienced WordCamp Speakers, having spoken at WordCamp Paris every year from 2011 to 2014 and to WordCamp Montreal just a couple of weeks back.

Julio is speaking on a fascinating and rare subject – Colour blindness. He’ll be giving designers a personal and useful insight on what works and what doesn’t for people who are colourblind.

Keep up with WordCamp Europe developments on  Twitter, Facebook, and Google + . 

WCEU Speakers: Luca Sartoni

Say hi to our next WCEU speaker Luca Sartoni.

Luca is a media professional with more than a decade of technical and marketing background. Thanks to his extensive experience in different business environments, from SMEs to large corporate projects, Luca helps companies scale up their business adopting data driven strategies. He does not believe in Santa Claus, magical spells and everything that is not backed up by facts. Luca is a Growth Engineer at Automattic.

Luca will be talking about Growth, exploring different scenarios on WordPress. He will apply a growth funnel to the most common projects in order to increase visits, retention and revenue on any WordPress site.

Stay tuned to WordCamp Europe on  Twitter, Facebook, and Google + . 

Apply for Media Accreditation for WordCamp Europe 2014

So you cover technology in a media outlet and would like to come to WordCamp Europe and share the awesomeness with your audience? Be our guest.

Media Accreditation Process for WordCamp Europe 2014 is now open. Along with a free ticket to attend, you will get a direct line to our know it all organising team and our guests and speakers.

Sound good?

Fill in the application form by Friday, September 5th and we’ll get in touch.

Cheers!