WE DIDN’T CARE ABOUT DIVERSITY… WHAT HAPPENED NEXT IS INSANE!

The first speaker we have lined up comes from the UK and inclusion is something she believes in dearly.

Her passion and energetic character fit her perfectly for her job as a Community Engineer for Human Made.

WordCamp London, of which she was the lead organizer two years in a row, has become an outstanding example for inclusion and accessibility. It was an honor and an amazing experience for me being allowed to work with Jenny as a volunteer.

Please welcome on stage our first Lightning Talk Speaker JENNY WONG.

TRANSLATING WORDPRESS INTO A LANGUAGE NOBODY SPEAKS

We continue with our next speaker straight away. He started using WordPress for blogging as a 12-year-old.

Today he is a student and works as web developer for required, in a small remote team based in Switzerland and Germany.

Furthermore, he is a WordPress core committer and really a nice guy to hang out with. He’s striving to make the web a better place every single day.

Please welcome on stage: PASCAL BIRCHLER.

HOW TRANSLATION SPRINTS HELP BRING IN NEW CONTRIBUTORS!

The next speaker we have lined up comes from India, a country with more than 23 official languages.

He is the founder & CEO of rtCamp a WordPress agency and only WordPress VIP partner from Asia. He is a WordCamp speaker, organizer and volunteer, a passionate polyglot, and developer of themes and plugins.

Spicy food and translation are his thing!

Please give a warm applause to RAHUL BANSAL.

HOW WE DEVELOPED OUR LOCAL WORDPRESS MEETUP

Our last speaker for this session started with WordPress as a blogger in theUK.

Today she owns a small company called Unramble where she successfully uses content to build brands.

Meanwhile, she got caught by the community bug and is a passionate Meetup and WordCamp organizer.

Before going to Disneyland on Monday for the very first time, we have her here on stage. Please put your hands together for ALICE STILL.

5 WAYS YOU MAY BE SABOTAGING YOUR BUSINESS + 2 PROVEN WAYS TO SUCCEED

The next speaker comes from the United States. The first thing Joshua wanted me to mention about him is, that he did not vote for Donald Trump. Just to make things clear.

As a ten-year-old boy, he wanted to become a jet fighter pilot, inspired by Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Well, things changed a bit in the meantime:

Today, he is co-founder and CEO of Pagely, the first ever managed WordPress Hosting service and Host of PressNomics.

He is here today to share his valuable knowledge and long-time experience to prevent YOU from learning some lessons the hard way.

Put your hands together, Ladies and Gentleman, it is an incredible honor to welcome on stage JOSHUA STREBEL.

LESSONS LEARNT MARKETING WOOCOMMERCE SINCE JULY 2014

Our next speaker loves writing poems about the sea. Furthermore, she borrows a little chihuahua via a service called Borrowmydoggy since more than two years now – what a gorgeous idea!

When she dropped her mom's 40th birthday cake, she was hiding for two hours in a cupboard. I could continue this list with fun facts about Marina for a while.

But her professional background is also an interesting one: she got in touch with WordPress in 2010 when she joined an eCommerce company called Yuppiechef based in South Africa, where she originally comes from. In 2014, she joined the WooThemes marketing team, one year later she got hired by Automattic where she works today.

She has been working in advertising and marketing for 10 years now. She wants to share with you a mix of day-to-day business and from her heart, to give courage and inspiration to people in similar roles.

Enjoy this talk and please give a warm applause to MARINA PAPE.

HOW TO GROW FROM FREELANCER TO AGENCY OWNER

When our next speaker was a ten-year-old-boy, he wanted to become David Attenborough, a famous English broadcaster for BBC and naturalist.
Indeed, he walked in his idol’s tracks by studying zoology at university. Impossible imagining David having no pet, right? He has a little dog called Fen which, he told me, is a very nice dog.

He got involved with WordPress in 2007 as a Freelancer.
Today, David is the Founder & Director of Pragmatic – a WordPress specialist agency.

He has experience building a WordPress business from the ground up, having grown his agency from one freelancer to over 40 full-time employees over the course of 5 years only.

Today he wants to help YOU if you want to grow a WordPress agency too. This by sharing his experience and insight which could save you some heartache and lost time along the way.

Please welcome on stage DAVID LOCKIE.

WE ARE ALL MAKING THIS UP: IMPROV LESSONS FOR DEVELOPERS

Our next speaker comes from the United States again, and he is fond of Science-Fiction, Comics and… Karaoke. If there is any possibility at the after-party, I’m pretty sure, we would all love to see him in action!

But his real passion is Improv. He loves producing and performing improv theater and he has been involved with that art form for twice as long as he has been involved in WordPress.

He saw so many similarities between the open source development world and the improv communities, that he decided to submit a lightning talk for a Drupal event. This talk was evolving since then.

Today he works for Pantheon, a website management platform as a Community and Agency Manager.

As a ten-year-old boy, he wanted to become a stand-up comedian so please prepare for a fun, interactive and instructive talk and put your hands together for DWAYNE MC DANIEL.

THE PERNICIOUS MYTH OF THE CODE POET

Our next speaker is –  believe it or not – one of the 50 best crossword puzzle solvers in the United States!

The father of 2 small children is technically a "freelancer" although he has founded a one-man consulting firm called Hard G that provides technical services around WordPress. He’s also a WordPress core committer and lead developer for BuddyPress.

Having done his doctoral studies in Philosophy, he read a lot about philosophical aesthetics and the foundations of art, so he has a good conceptual framework for thinking about the concepts of "art" and "poetry" as they apply to software development work – or not.

The motto "code is poetry" has always bugged him and today he will unpack his annoyance, to see if he’s just a curmudgeon or if there's really something wrong with the motto.

Please welcome on stage: BOONE GORGES.

Our last speaker for this morning also comes from the United States, where she was a champion fencer in high school. She has had a lot of different jobs in her life so far, among others as a Greenpeace activist, High School English teacher in Mexico, liquor salesperson in the Caribbean.

In 2011 she got hired by Automattic to work on WordPress project community efforts - specifically - the WordCamp program.

She wrote this talk and then developed the volunteer training program that the community team now uses, centering on the "open source-y" reasons behind all the kooky things they do or recommend people to do.

As a WordPress Community-Junkie, I am especially looking forward to this talk. Give a warm applause to our last speaker this morning: ANDREA MIDDLETON.