Please welcome the first round of confirmed speakers for WordCamp Canada 2025! So far, 17 speakers and 16 talks are already confirmed, making this event one of the most thoughtful, timely, and practical WordPress programs you’ll find anywhere this year.
This first group of speakers brings deep experience across the entire web, from accessibility, performance, and publishing workflows to block development, design systems, and community sustainability. And they span a breadth of perspectives that, together, give the WordPress community its outsized impact on the evolution of the publishing and business.
Our First Speakers Are In
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Alex Melen
View Profile: Alex MelenAlex Melen, co-founder of SmartSites, is an award-winning entrepreneur and keynote speaker featured in Forbes and Bloomberg for digital innovation.
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Alex Sirota
View Profile: Alex SirotaAlex Sirota is a plugin developer, community leader, and WordCamp Toronto organizer who brings tech expertise and jazz energy to the WordPress world.
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Brent Toderash
View Profile: Brent ToderashWith 25+ years in IT, Brent advocates WordPress, FLOSS, and decentralized package management through AspirePress and FAIR to reduce supply chain risk.
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Brian Coords
View Profile: Brian CoordsBrian Coords is a WordPress developer, writer, and WooCommerce Developer Advocate who hosts Webmasters.fm and writes for top industry sites.
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Daniel Paz
View Profile: Daniel PazTechnical SEO and WordPress expert with 16+ years’ experience. Founder of WP Alta Performance and CTO at Genesis Digital, boosting site speed and ROI.
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Dave Winer
View Profile: Dave WinerDave was an early open web developer who built core tools behind WordPress. Software developer, blogger, and podcaster sharing insights on web technology.
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Evan Prodromou
View Profile: Evan ProdromouEvan Prodromou co-authored ActivityPub and led W3C Social Web standards. He builds open web tools like Wikitravel and GNU social.
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Jeffrey Paul
View Profile: Jeffrey PaulJeffrey Paul is VP of Open Source at Fueled, leading WordPress core efforts, plugin sustainability, and contributor strategy across the ecosystem.
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Jennifer Curry Jahnke
View Profile: Jennifer Curry JahnkeJennifer Curry Jahnke is a digital accessibility expert and award-winning educator with 20+ years advancing inclusive education and web standards.
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Joe A Simpson Jr
View Profile: Joe A Simpson JrJoe is a UX-focused WordPress developer, community leader, and speaker dedicated to accessibility and empowering underrepresented tech communities.
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Jonathan Desrosiers
View Profile: Jonathan DesrosiersJonathan, a WordPress Core committer since 2018, builds at scale and mentors new contributors. He’s a Principal Software Engineer at Bluehost.
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Keanan Koppenhaver
View Profile: Keanan KoppenhaverKeanan, a seasoned WordPress developer, founded FloorboardAI to help agencies harness AI for better workflows, efficiency, and client results.
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Mary Job
View Profile: Mary JobMary is a Support Engineer at Paid Memberships Pro, agency owner, and community leader teaching tech skills and supporting the African WP community.
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Ryan Welcher
View Profile: Ryan WelcherRyan is a Developer Advocate at Automattic helping devs adopt Gutenberg. He contributes to WordPress and streams custom block dev on Twitch.
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Sandi Gauder
View Profile: Sandi GauderSandi is a web accessibility expert with 15+ years’ experience helping teams build accessible sites and meet AODA guidelines.
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Sasha Endoh
View Profile: Sasha EndohSasha is the founder of Endoh Collaborative, a feminist digital agency crafting accessible design and branding to empower nonprofits and purpose-driven businesses.
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Troy Chaplin
View Profile: Troy ChaplinTroy builds accessible WordPress Enterprise solutions, React libraries, and tools that empower developers to create modern, sustainable websites.
Explore the Sessions
With an incredible lineup of speakers now confirmed, WordCamp Canada 2025 is set to deliver a program packed with insight, inspiration, and real-world takeaways. Whether you’re passionate about performance, accessibility, design systems, or cutting-edge block development, there’s something for everyone. These sessions reflect the depth and diversity of the WordPress community—and you won’t want to miss a single one.
Here’s a glimpse at what’s coming:
- Cutting-edge insights into the future of the block editor, including what’s next for layout tools, patterns, and interactivity.
- Design and UX guidance from those working at the intersection of design systems and user experience in both agency and enterprise environments.
- Front-end development practices that balance modern tooling with performance and maintainability.
- Talks that challenge assumptions about plugins, the admin experience, and how we build for the web.
- Sessions rooted in real-world needs, like improving publishing workflows in newsrooms, creating accessible experiences from day one, and building themes that work for everyone — not just developers.
- Honest conversations about sustainability and burnout, and what it means to contribute meaningfully without sacrificing well-being.
Shaping the Future of WordPress and the Web
In addition to the speakers announced today, we’re proud to feature two keynote talks that will help frame some of the most important conversations happening around WordPress and the open web.
Evan Prodromou, founder of identi.ca and long-time advocate for open standards and federation, will deliver Beyond Microblogging: WordPress Leads the Way in Long-Form Text on the Social Web. His talk explores how WordPress is uniquely positioned to support rich, thoughtful publishing in a social web increasingly dominated by brevity and walled gardens.
Dave Winer, a pioneering developer and writer whose work helped shape blogging, RSS, and podcasting, will present WordPress and the Open Social Web. He’ll share lessons from decades of building for the open internet and make the case for WordPress as a cornerstone of a more distributed, user-owned web.
Together, these keynotes will set the tone for a weekend of discussion, reflection, and hands-on learning, rooted in the idea that WordPress doesn’t just power websites, it helps shape the future of the web itself.
The Journey to October Begins
We can’t wait to share more in the weeks ahead, including additional speakers, workshops, and the full schedule. But for now, we’re incredibly proud of this first group and the conversations they’re bringing to Ottawa this October.
🎟️ Tickets are on sale now — and we’d love for you to join us.
Whether you work in WordPress full-time or just want to better understand the tools and people shaping the modern web, WordCamp Canada 2025 will be an event grounded in learning, connection, and community.
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