Introducing our first round of speakers!

We’ve had a lot of great talks proposed for the first WordCamp to be held in Singapore in five years, and we’re excited to announce our first round of speakers.

WordCamp Singapore Speakers 1

Noel Tock

Noel Tock will be delivering one of our keynotes. Hailing from Zurich, Switzerland, he’s a partner at Human Made, one of the top-tier global WordPress agencies (and partner of the WordPress.com VIP Programme).

He’ll be speaking about how to succeed in working with WordPress, and getting involved with the WordPress community.

Roxanne Chia

Roxanne Chia is a Singapore-based beauty blogger, ex-lecturer, and educator.

She will be speaking about how being an educator changed the way she blogs about beauty.

Dat Hoang

Dat Hoang, from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, helps with WPML, the WordPress Multilingual Plugin.

He will be speaking about how WPML organises their customer support policies, earning the love and loyalty of their customers.

Hedren Sum

Hedren Sum is a librarian at Singapore’s very own Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Libraries.

He will be sharing on how he used WordPress to create a digital research archive that helps to engage different interest groups on intangible heritage, which covers languages, festivals, cuisines and traditional craftsmanship.

Mahangu Weerasinghe

Mahangu Weerasinghe, from Colombo, Sri Lanka, has been using WordPress since version 0.70. He works at Automattic as a Happiness Engineer.

He will be speaking about how WordPress is hackable by design, and show, with examples, how easy it is for non-developers to break into WordPress coding.

Shinichi Nishikawa

Shinichi Nishikawa, who currently lives in Ogijima, Japan, not only works with big clients from all around the world, but also contributes to the WordPress project in various ways.

He will speak about how high traffic blogs, media websites, and e-commerce shops offload their services from WordPress to platform providers such as Google and Amazon Web Services.

Dandreb John Bitanghol

Dandreb John Bitanghol (also known as Dreb Bits), from Davao, Philippines, is a web engineer at 10up, where he focuses on building and supporting WordPress.com VIP sites.

He will be speaking about the advantages of using and adding hooks, and how using them helps with large codebases.

Rahul Bansal

Rahul Bansal, from Pune, India, started India’s first WordPress-only agency, rtCamp, in 2009, and he has been involved in open-source WordPress projects such as rtMedia and EasyEngine.

He will be sharing a story about how rtCamp used innovative methods to hire passionate people, some challenges they’ve faced, and how they have nurtured a culture of giving back to open source.

Visit the Speakers page to learn more about each of them. If you haven’t bought your tickets, please make sure to do so by Sunday, 14 August 2016 (get your tickets here!) to guarantee a T-shirt in your size.

Meet SingaPuu!

A WordCamp is not fun without a Wapuu. Therefore we are very excited to introduce our very own Wapuu “SingaPuu” to represent WordCamp Singapore 2016!

SingaPuu-#2

What’s a Wapuu, you ask? Wapuu is essentially the unofficial mascot of WordCamp. The idea was first mentioned in 2009 at the WordCamp Tokyo after-party, where Matt asked Japanese users for ideas to promote WordPress in Japan, and one of the suggestions is to create a mascot. One things lead to another and finally Wapuu was born! (Here’s the complete story for those who want to know more) Ever since then, almost every WordCamp had their own Wapuu.

The name SingaPuu is a portmanteau of Singapore and Wapuu. “Singa” means “Lion” in Malay language. Singapore (or Singapura in Malay) essentially means “Lion City”, which is why SingaPuu is dressed in a Lion costume!

SingaPuu will be roarin’ in WordCamp Singapore on 6th September, 2016 at One Marina Boulevard. Grab your tickets here!

Call for Speakers Extended!

Note: Our Call for Speakers is now closed. If you have any questions about WordCamp Singapore, please email us or tweet us at @WordCampSG.

Our Call for Speakers has been open for a month! We’ve seen some great submissions so far, but found that there are still plenty of people who haven’t heard that WordCamp Singapore is happening. We don’t want to miss out on any potentially great talks, so we’ve decided to extend the submission deadline to Monday, 18 July 2016, at 11:59pm Singapore time!

Once again: you don’t need to have lots of public speaking experience. All that we ask is that you be able to present your chosen topic passionately and respectfully.

We’re also looking to put together a show-and-tell segment, where you can tell a short story of how your WordPress website evolved over time. This will be great for anyone looking to gain some speaking experience.

If you’re unsure of a topic, we’ll be happy to talk about it with you.

We’ve already begun shortlisting our speakers, and will be announcing some of them soon!

If you feel like there’s a blogger whose story you would like to hear about, or have a friend who you think would be a great speaker for WordCamp, do share the Call for Speakers link with them.

WordCamp Singapore 2016 is over. Check out the next edition!