Category: Updates

WordCamps are awesome! WordCamps are fun! Who doesn’t want to see a nice little WordCamp in their own city? However, behind all the fun and glamour(?) is lot of hard work and dedication. WordCamps don’t spring out of the blue. They evolve from a healthy, thriving local meetup group. There are a lot of perils and some disappointment that paves the path. Then there’s the quintenssential debate about the community being GPL only.

Worry not, though; help is on the way. At WordCamp Pune we get together a couple of leaders from the community on a panel to deicuss Hosting a WordCamp in your city.

and many other experts in the audience right beside you! Read more about our panelists on the speakers’ page.

Sahunak De is a man of many hats and he’s talking about Security, efficiency and a touch of Varnish – Efficient WordPress for everybody.

Shaunak is a coder, a research felllow at IIT Bombay, teacher, writer, artist and budding standup comic. He’s very familiar with WordPress and interested in all things content as well as code.

He started tinkering with computers when he was a child, and has not stopped since. He lives, breathes and teaches web-development, security and computer science. Code-chef who turns complicated nerd-fodder into easy geek-chow.

Ramya Pandyan has been blogging before blogging even became a thing. She has previously spoken at WordCamp Mumbai 2014 and 2015 edition. At WordCamp Pune she’s the awesome sauce helping us with some great speakers, organising the Word Lounge by Alphabet Sambar and conducting The Blogger Gym – an interactive workshop on blog creation in addition to all that. More about the workshop, in a while.

IdeaSmith is the digital doppelganger of Ramya Pandyan (intrepid train-traveller and frequent spouter of post-midnight rhymes and rants). As IdeaSmith she battles obscurity and slays boredom with her stories about men, books, digitalia and Mumbai. She performs live and also blogs, tweets, Instagrams, Facebooks, +G’s, Youtubes and Goodreads all as IdeaSmith.

She also runs a forum for aspiring writers called Alphabet Sambar, which brings the Word Lounge to WordCamp Pune 2015. Ramya’s verbal performances air at The Idea-smithy and XX Factor. Tweet-bomb her at @ideasmithy.

Michael is flying half way across the world to help you see BuddyPress as more than a mere Facebook clone and speak about how to Increase user engagement with BuddyPress.

He is a BuddyPress enthusiast, with experience designing and building themes and plugins.

He is co-founder of BuddyBoss, a company that helps entrepreneurs to create successful BuddyPress communities. He previously managed the development and growth of SongLyrics.com, one of the most highly-trafficked websites in the world with over 100 million annual visitors. He has spoken at BuddyCamp Brighton (UK), WordCamp Miami, WordCamp Columbus, and several universities about BuddyPress and web design.

Raghavendra Peri is someone who works on accessibility day in and day out. His opinions on accessibility are all the more important since it comes from his own experience. Which is why he’s the most appropriate person to conduct An Experiential Workshop on Accessibility with WordPress. You can experience websites the way a lot of people do and see why it’s awesome when websites are accessible, first hand!

Raghavendra is a Digital Accessibility Consultant at Deque
Systems. He is also a Digital Marketing Strategist, Speaker, and
Blogger & Entrepreneur. At the age of 8, he was diagnosed with a
degenerative eye condition called Retinitis pigmentosa that rendered
him totally blind at the age of 26. But that did not stop him from
pursuing his dreams. He keeps himself actively involved in the
technology space & uses various assistive technologies in his day to
day life.

He loves travelling, listening to audio books, partying, socializing,
trekking, running and giving motivational talks at schools & colleges,
apart from his day today work.

He is currently pursuing his bucket list of 101 things to do before I die

101 things to do before I die

Vachan Kudmule is an active member and organiser of the Mumbai WordPress community and has even initiated a WooCommerce Meetup. He’s going to talk about Indian Payment Gateways for your WordPress powered eCommerce sites in Marathi, Hindi and English.

Vachan became an entrepreneur in 2002, at 17, when he started his firm KDC (Krazy Devil Creationz). It has grown into a full-fledged web solutions agency. He’s studied architecture and started his second firm KDC Inc in 2006 which provides architecture and interior design solutions. He ventured into eCommerce Consulting in 2009 and started KDC Pay which assists startups in building full fledged eCommerce sites with Payment Gateway accruing and integration. At present Vachan is involved with all the three while also heading the design and technology teams for White Shadows, a digital marketing agency.

Vachan’s motto is “everything can and must be designed”. He’s passionate about FOSS (Free Open Source Software) and helping start-ups grow their business. Self learning and exploring new ideas keeps him motivated and he has pioneered many industry first concepts in alternative access mediums. He’s presently experimenting with Native Mobile App Development.

Vachan means a promise in Sanskrit. For those of you who couldn’t catch the wordplay in the title because of the language!