Category Archives: Featured Speakers

Featured Speaker: Brendan Sera-Shriar

Brendan Sera-Shriar has been an interactive designer, developer, college and university professor, community manager, author, consultant, and professional speaker at some of the largest corporations and festivals in the world, including Microsoft, Mozilla Firefox, Sun Microsystems, WordCamp, BlogWorld, SXSW and more. His work has also appeared in TechCrunch, TechVibes, WordPress TV, and a host of other blogs. He was also featured in the October 2012 issue of Marketing Magazine.

Despite being known best for his work as a WordPress designer, developer, and WordCamp speaker and organizer, Brendan’s best communications skills lie in his ability to help organizations understand how they can build communities around their products and services. Continue reading

Featured Speaker: Ryan Welcher

Seeking change from a career as an audio engineer, Ryan graduated from the International Academy of Design and Technology and began working as a web developer. From 2004 to 2011, he ran an independent agency, where he had the pleasure of working with clients such as Denny’s Canada, Veritas Canada, and Canadian music icons Rush.

In 2009, Ryan discovered WordPress while working for Les Stroud – T.V’s Survivorman – and was immediately hooked. Not long after, he released his first plugin for the WordPress community. He began working with WordPress full-time in 2010 when he joined an agency in Ottawa, Ontario; within a year, Ryan became a Senior Web Developer. During his time there, Ryan used WordPress to power large sites, online games, and mobile applications.

Ryan is active in the WordPress community and contributes as often as possible. He loves helping new WordPress developers by giving presentations and answering questions at his local Meetup group.

When he’s not writing code, Ryan is typically found hanging out with his amazing wife, two hilarious kids, and big, shaggy golden-doodle named Blue.

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Featured Speaker: Dara Skolnick

“Hi, I’m Dara and I’m an independent web designer and front-end developer from Toronto. I’ve worked at a number of places from large organizations to small agencies, and now I run my own one-person shop where I design and code websites for entrepreneurs, creatives, and big-hearted small businesses. I’ve been creating websites professionally for many years, and these days the majority of them are in WordPress!”

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