When we started working on WordCamp Belfast, we really were not sure how many speaker applications we would get.
As it turns out, we need not have worried.
While we may not have as many local speakers as we would have liked, we think you will agree that the range of talks and speakers we have in store for our first WordCamp is pretty good, to say the least!
Ahmed Khalifa
A former Lisburn (Northern Ireland) resident and now residing in Edinburgh, Ahmed is a digital marketer by trade and a WordPress lover at heart. He provide consultancy, audit, coaching and training for entrepreneurs and small businesses within various fields including SEO, content marketing, Google Analytics, PPC and conversion rate optimisation.
Whilst working in the digital marketing field, Ahmed has a background across various industries. This include working for a publishing company in Berlin, digital marketing agency outside of Brighton, a travel company in Edinburgh and was also in charge of SEO for the high-street footwear chain ‘schuh’.
Alexandra Draghici
Alexandra handles product development at CaptainForm, WordPress form builder.
In the past, she managed other projects of 123ContactForm, the mother company, mainly the development of new features and integrations based on market and user analysis.
She is constantly looking to deepen her understanding of user behaviour, so as to build better solutions for them.
Amit Wadhwa
Amit has been using WordPress since around 2005, first as a casual user for internal corporate websites and then as a website CMS for client websites since opening Xava in 2012.
Specialising in developing engaging and beautiful websites for their clients. But our strength is in helping small and medium businesses navigate around all technical issues related to their business websites. We simplify the issues and make it easier for our clients to manage their sites
Claire Savage
Claire Savage is a professional copywriter/journalist/creative writer who lives near the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. In July 2014 she set up her independent copywriting and editing business – Claire Savage Editorial – creating quality content for businesses and organisations. This includes writing SEO content for websites, business blogs, press releases, case studies and more, as well as providing editing and freelance journalism services.
In January 2015, Claire also took on the role of Features Editor at The Incubator Journal, which champions short story writing and poetry throughout Ireland.
With almost 10 years’ experience as a journalist, Claire previously spent five years as a local newspaper reporter at the Coleraine Chronicle, before becoming a sub-editor at RE&D (NI) Ltd, working on the Belfast Telegraph and Irish Independent newspapers.
Conor Woods
By day, Conor is a senior software dev at the BBC.
But by night he transforms into a WordPress-wielding, website-producing, awesomely-productive, web dev.
His passion for WordPress found him creating teamthing.com (a WordPress backed site that gets sports clubs online for free) and blogging (intermittently) at productiveprogrammer.io.
Although a software developer for over 15 years (building custom web, server and mobile applications) he is increasingly finding more and more uses for WordPress in his ‘day’ job.
Danny Dagan
Danny Dagan is a Senior Web Strategist for WordPress agency 10up, who are key contributors to WordPress core.
He is also legally educated and wrote a dissertation about the new data protection regime.
He loves combining the two ‘geek professions’, tech and law, and promises not to use Latin unless it is entirely necessary (though Dothraki and Klingon may be featured).
Perhaps the Dothraki is another reason for Danny to visit Northern Ireland?
Emanuel Blagonic
Emanuel has more than 13 years of experience and more than 500 different projects with worldwide clients on his back. From designing websites to designing touch–screen applications, he worked with small and big clients, startups and global projects.
Although primarily a designer, he’s been in love with WordPress for the past 10 years, being one of the biggest promoters in Croatia – writing articles about WordPress that are not only promoting WordPress but open source as well.
He helped organise the first WordCamp Croatia and organises WordPress Meetup Zagreb with his brother Lucijan.
As one of the pioneers of the web standards movement in Croatia he is active in community where he works on building a better understanding for design process and educates clients as much as possible.
Heather Burns
Heather researches, writes, publishes, consults and speaks extensively on internet laws and policies, most specifically those that affect the crafts of web design and development.
Heather has been designing and developing web sites since 1997, working with WordPress since 2008, and having way too much fun at WordCamps since 2011.
Juan Felipe Rincón
Juan Felipe is Manager of Webmaster Outreach within Google’s Search Quality team, and his team’s mission is to help Webmasters create great online content and make it accessible to users.
Prior to joining Google, he spent the better part of the previous 15 years in the mobile and wireless industry, focusing on developer evangelism back when building mobile apps involved trying to put things on tiny little flip phones.
Luminus Olumide Alabi
Luminus Olumide Alabi, Happiness Engineer at Automattic. Luminus who works on support for WooCommerce full time, will give a run through on how to get started with WooCommerce, and allow you to convert your WordPress blog or site in to an e-commerce platform.
Marcin Kilarski
Marcin is an SEO strategist and founder of Web Innovation, who specialises in technical SEO. As an ex-front-end developer, he helps companies identify and fix issues that search engines have with their websites.
Marcin wasn’t born in Ireland, but he has spent a third of his life on this green island. In his free time, he organises events for entrepreneurs and startups to help them on their journey to create the next “big thing”.
Michael Martin
Lead frontend developer for Deloitte Digital in Belfast. I specialise in React and all things JavaScript, but started out as a WordPress freelancer for several years and ran a popular WordPress blog at ProBlogDesign.com
Paul Goodchild
Bio/Description
Website developer and entrepreneur (icontrolwp.com).
Inspired by Tim Ferriss, Michael E. Gerber, Robert T Kiyosaki with regards work and earning a living.
We built iControlWP WordPress Management to fix a real need in the quickly growing WordPress market – Worpit aspires to be the first and last place you’ll ever go to do any and all related WordPress administration work across your whole network. Find me on Twitter.
Interests
Thinking of new business ideas that I have absolutely no time implement – my favourite past-time. I enjoy photography, self-improvement and writing, photography when time permits, and of course travelling!
Rodolfo Melogli
Author, WooCommerce expert, Web Developer and Internet marketer, Rodolfo Melogli founded his own Web Agency in 2011.
He helps established small-to-medium businesses grow sales cost-effectively. Rodolfo is the organiser of the Dublin Ecommerce Meetup & the Dublin WooCommerce Meetup.
He enjoys interacting with people, running on the beach and chasing tennis & soccer balls. Of course, he loves pizza too.
Seamus Brady
Seamus is the developer of Instant WordPress (instantwp.com) or IWP as he usually calls it. This is a free WordPress development tool that has been downloaded 1 million + times
Stephen Kinkaid
A graduate of Queens University Belfast and a local Secondary School Teacher for 12 years Stephen now heads up the team at Big Wet Fish Hosting in Belfast/Carrickfergus serving thousands of clients from around the world.
WordPress accounts for a very high percentage of BWF hosted sites and Stephen and the team have daily experience in handling WordPress support requests including abuse, security and speed related issues.”
Stewart Ritchie
Stewart is a Northern Irish gentleman living just outside of London via 10 years in Glasgow.
Lead developer and founder at Powered By Coffee Stewart spends his days building WordPress websites, tracking down new clients and refining his teams DevOps and collaboration processes
Tim O’Driscoll
Tim has over 15 years experience in IT Management, Web Development, Graphic Presentation, Document Management & Project Management.
He is also long standing user of all things ‘Adobe’, from Illustrator to Dreamweaver, Photoshop to Flash.
With experience in Server configuration from SBS, MES, BES also including MAC OSX, WAMP & LAMP.
And he is continually on the lookout for new technologies that can assist business’s construct an IT environment that suits their economic & project needs.
Tim O’Driscoll – Tim has over 15 years working in the Irish Market, and now runs his own company BeeOnLion. Tim has a wide range of experience ranging from Web Design, IT Management, Graphic Presentation, project specific photography services to 3D Modelling.
