Please welcome the first round of confirmed speakers for WordCamp Canada 2026! We’re kicking things off with 12 speakers and 12 sessions already locked in, and it’s already shaping up to be one of the most practical, forward-looking WordPress programs you’ll find this year.
Our First Speakers Are In
This first group brings deep experience from across the WordPress ecosystem — core contributors, agency leaders, product managers, developer advocates, and educators — covering everything from block development and the Interactivity API to AI-assisted workflows, accessibility, and what it means to build (and lead) in an industry moving faster than ever.
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Andy Peatling
Creator of Miles, an AI agent for WordPress design. 20+ years in WordPress, including 17 as a product leader at Automattic.
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Anton Plauche
Associate Director of Technology specializing in healthcare WordPress, with a decade building for SaaS, non-profits, and pharma brands.
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Benjamin Zekavica
WordPress Core Team member and founder of Kreo Pulse, UnleashWP, and Scale2Boss, championing WordPress as serious digital infrastructure.
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Chris Reynolds
Senior Developer Advocate at Pantheon, open source maintainer, Pluralsight instructor, and WordPress community member since 2011.
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Emily Kaija
Director of People and Culture at XWP, building honest, human conditions for distributed teams — and not afraid of hard conversations.
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Joey Kudish
Software developer and AI consultant with 20+ years building on the web, WordPress contributor since 2011, and former WordCamp Vancouver organizer.
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Michelle Frechette
Executive Director of Post Status, dubbed ‘The busiest woman in WordPress’ by Matt Mullenweg, helping others find their voice and brand.
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Mika Epstein
WordPress developer and former Plugin Review team lead at Awesome Motive, cofounder of LezWatch.TV, and international speaker on tech and humanism.
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Nik McLaughlin
Support Engineer and Product Manager at SkyVerge, leading 40+ WooCommerce extensions used by 200,000 stores, with a decade in eCommerce.
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Ryan Welcher
Developer Advocate at Automattic focused on Gutenberg adoption, active WordPress contributor, and Twitch streamer building custom blocks.
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Shanta Nathwani
WordPress educator with 50+ WordCamp talks and 10 years teaching at Sheridan College, leading beginner workshops at WordCamp Canada.
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Taylor Waldon
Director of Technical Product Ownership at Fueled, with roots at LearnDash and GiveWP, making complex product talk approachable and real.
Explore the Sessions
With our first speakers confirmed, WordCamp Canada 2026 is set to deliver a program packed with hands-on skills, honest conversation, and real production stories. A few themes stand out already:
AI is the throughline of this year’s program — but not as hype. Four sessions dig into what AI actually means for how we build and work: a practical playbook for winning AI search visibility, hands-on guardrails for coding with AI tools like Claude, a product-strategy talk on resisting feature hype, and a candid conversation about what AI means for engineers’ careers and identity. Even our opening keynote is a first-hand account of building a product solo, working alongside AI agents every day.
The technical program goes deep on where WordPress is headed. Expect hands-on workshops on the Interactivity API and a fresh look at the Abilities API beyond its AI use case, plus a session on how WordPress 7.0’s new block registration model changes the economics of custom block work for agencies.
And the human side of WordPress gets equal billing. We’ve got a real production case study on migrating a live site from CMB2 to ACF Pro (bugs, PR counts, and all), an honest account of one developer’s ongoing journey into accessibility, a session on using intrinsic design to make client handoffs painless, a look at communication and trust inside community projects, and a beginner-friendly workshop for anyone brand new to WordPress.
Keynote: A Team of One
Andy Peatling will join us at WordCamp Canada 2026 with A Team of One, the field notes from six months spent designing, building, and shipping Miles — an AI-powered WordPress product — entirely solo, working alongside AI agents every day. Practical, honest, and hands-on, it’s a talk for anyone building sites for clients or shipping their own products, and it sets the tone for a weekend built around what it actually takes to build well in the age of AI.
The Journey to November 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 Vancouver.
🎟️ 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 2026 will be an event grounded in learning, connection, and community.