Speakers

Aaron is a Chicago WordPress developer and designer, gamer and father. He builds amazing WordPress themes, applications and plugins with his company A7 Web Design and has been working with WordPress since 2005.

With clients across the globe, he has had the opportunity to build many different types of WordPress sites and loves to contribute back to the community by speaking at WordCamps, organizing WordPress Meetups and helping beginners whenever possible.

When Aaron’s not coding, he loves eating hot wings, drinking cold beer, watching Day[9] and listening to Merlin Mann.

Al has been working in the I.T. Industry for the past 20 years and coding websites since 1998. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Johnson and Wales University earning an A.S. in Applied Computer Science and a B.S. in Information Science.

Now he builds and oversees web applications as a Senior Programmer Analyst for the State of Rhode Island, specializes in .Net, VB, jQuery, SQL, PHP, HTML, CSS, and freelances building custom WordPress themes.

Ben has a long history of developing programs for the web as well as mobile clients and desktop computers.

After getting his start at a small internet service provider in his home town, Ben went on to earn his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Since then, Ben spent several years honing his technical and business skills freelancing with a wide variety of clients, developing custom software solutions and websites to suit their needs.

Ben is passionate about open-source software and has developed many websites using free CMS platforms like Drupal and WordPress. He has used his expertise to develop attractive and effective custom themes and modules for both platforms.

I’m a designer, developer, and founder of a few WP-related companies. I co-host the FreelanceJam (http://freelancejam.com) podcast, a show all about freelancing and web design. I’m also a contributer to Mashable, FreelanceSwitch and other sites, where I write about Freelance, Business, and WordPress.

You can find all the projects I’m involved in at my personal blog (http://briancasel.com) and connect with me on Twitter @CasJam. I’m based in Norwalk, CT and I’m an active member of the WordPress Stamford Meetup group (http://www.meetup.com/stamfordwp/)

Renee Hobbs is Professor and Founding Director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island, a new communication school that brings together the departments and programs in Journalism, Film/Media, Communication Studies, Public Relations, Writing & Rhetoric and a graduate program in Library and Information Studies, with 1300 undergrads, 350 grads and more than 80 fulltime faculty.

Supported by a generous gift by Dick Harrington, former CEO of Thomson/Reuters, Renee Hobbs will help the faculty to create a new school of national distinction, charged with the mission of using the power of communication and digital media to make a difference in the world.

Professor Hobbs is one of the nation’s leading authorities on media literacy education.

Through community and global service and as a researcher, teacher, advocate and media professional, Hobbs has worked to advance the quality of digital and media literacy education in the United States and around the world. She founded the Media Education Lab, whose mission is to improve the quality of media literacy education through research and community service.

In the early 1990s, she created the first national teacher education program in media literacy, the Harvard Institute on Media Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Jess works as a Senior Web Strategist at 10up, a premium web strategy and development agency. Jess has over four years of experience working in the interactive space with Fortune 20 brands, major non-profits and state organizations. Jess is passionate about creating an interactive and engaging audience experience for users and a seamless content management experience for publishers using WordPress.