Shawn Hooper is the CTO at Actionable Books, where he enjoys combining code and data to build intelligent tools for teams and leaders. Hailing from Ottawa, Canada, Shawn has been building web applications since the late 90s, with a focus on WordPress since 2011. As a freelance developer, he has built sites for clients in the public and private sectors in both Canada and United States. He loves making use of great 3rd party APIs, promoting web accessibility and secure coding practices.

John P Bloch is a Lead Web Engineer at 10up where he spends his time helping clients with large and complex WordPress sites. John started working with WordPress as a self-taught English-major-turned-developer in 2008 and hasn’t stopped since. John lives near Dallas, Texas where he enjoys the warm nights and slow-cooked barbecue.

Michelle is an independent graphic designer in Minneapolis (formerly Chicago). Her formal education is in design, including print, branding, packaging, etc., plus studies in Psychology and Sociology. Together, this resulted in a love of How To Solve Problems. Lately she has been specializing in WordPress theme development and high-end presentations for her clients. She loves the open source community and speaks/volunteers/organizes at WordCamps and other events around the country.

Ernie is a front-end developer, writer, speaker, designer and community organizer with an interest in how technology interacts with communities. Born and raised in the Bay Area and living in Miami, he is an internet industry veteran spanning 15 years, including running 8Asians, a community blog for Asian Americans, and being Developer Evangelist at Ning. He most recently served as a 2015 Code for America Fellow working with Miami-Dade County and is currently a software engineer at RackSpace.

Louise is an eternal web development geek and social media junkie. She’s a native of Metro Detroit and an alumnae of the University of Michigan. She learned about the human side of computer science while earning a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science and has fined tuned her web developer skills over the course of a 20+ year career building, breaking, and fixing sites for a multitude of startups. She’s never had a “real” job and thus is quite well-versed on the realities of being a successful freelancer and small business owner. Louise loves coffee, is full of useless facts, and is eagerly waiting for her shot on Jeopardy. She lives in South Florida with her three bouncing boys and her husband.

Matt Medeiros is the host of popular WordPress podcast, The Matt Report. The show discusses the challenges and highlights of running a digital agency while standing in the crossroads of product development.

He is the co-founder of a digital agency, Slocum Studio and the product mind behind Conductor Plugin.

Nile Flores is a long time WordPress designer and Developer. Nile blogs at Blondish.net, where she covers topics on WordPress, Blogging, SEO, Social Media, and Web Design.She also loves contributing to WordPress, and that includes speaking at WordCamps across the United States. She loves helping people and supporting Open Source projects. She is a proud support member at Team Yoast. She also runs a 7,000 member Facebook roup dedicated to helping WordPressers, called All About WordPress. When Nile isn’t knee deep in coding and design, she’s spending time with her son, who is also a WordPress user.

Catalina is a content geek who has written different kind of content about economics, politics, policies, food, education and technology. She is a partner and contributor to TECHcetera a digital media platform aiming to help its Spanish speaking audience to make the most of the technology conversation..At TECHcetera, she writes about the use (and abuse) of technology in educational settings. Catalina is particularly interested in discussing how access to technological tools can reduce the knowledge gaps. She is a networker by nature and is part of local networks promoting women’s inclusion particularly in the tech scene. She had worked in different organizations including the London equivalent of a charter school where she began to understand the power that technology can have in learning and teaching environments. She grew up in Bogotá, Colombia where she attended the French school and obtained a BA in Economics. She lived in London for eight years where she got a Masters degree in international relations from the London School of Economics and qualified as a teacher. Catalina is a compulsive reader and avid cook. She lives in Miami with her family. Twitter: @cavalenzu.