Author: Hari Shanker R

I am an Open Source Program Manager at Automattic. I work full-time on WordPress, and I am a Community Program Manager (formerly known as "Super Deputy") on the Make/WordPress Community Team. My current focus is on making the contributor experience for the WordPress open source software the best it can be. I'm currently leading the Contributor Working Group of WordPress where we are working on building contributor mentorship programs for WordPress! I also help manage, support, and run the Five for the Future program. WordPress is one of the biggest passions in my life, and I strongly believe that open source tech and the open web have the potential to make the world a better place. I have had a rather diverse career with significant experience in the domains of Retail Banking, Print & Web Journalism, Web Development, Entrepreneurship, Event Management, Professional Blogging, and Education. Outside of work, I enjoy writing (blogging) as a hobby, and I'm a compulsive bibliophile. I'm also a happily married pet parent to three cats.
Siddharth Ashok

Speaker announcement: Siddharth Ashok on “How to be a better designer (Specially as a developer)”

Posted on by Hari Shanker R

Siddharth Ashok will be speaking on the topic How to be a better designer (Specially as a developer). This session will be held on the weekend of 13th and 14th February 2021. The schedule will soon be announced – keep following this space!

Bio of Siddharth Ashok

Siddharth Ashok is the co-founder of GrandWorks, a multidisciplinary digital agency, where he helps businesses around the world with outcome-focused design and development. He works as a Front-end developer and thrives in the grey area between design and development. He is passionate about CSS, web performance, clean code, and designing functional UI/UX. He also enjoys building communities and organizing events. The lead organizer for WordPress Goa and Goa Web Folks meetup group, he loves to contribute to the community, by sharing knowledge at events on topics related to Front-End and WordPress.

About the session

Siddharth will speak on the topic How to be a better designer (Specially as a developer). In the session, he will cover;

  • The need to be better at design as a developer, its importance, and how it helps us.
  • Steps and exercises to become a better designer
  • How to take a design language and extend into an aesthetic UI
  • Best tools to use
  • Understanding the use of color, fonts, and general best-practices to make a clean UI
  • Understanding UX

Speaker Announcement: A Fireside chat with Matt Mullenweg and Josepha Haden

Posted on by Hari Shanker R

Join us for an exclusive fireside chat with Matt Mullenweg (Co-founder of WordPress) and Josepha Haden (Executive Director of the WordPress project) on Sunday 14th February, at 8:00 PM India Standard Time (14:30 UTC)!

About Matt

Matt Mullenweg is co-founder of the open-source publishing platform WordPress, which now powers over one-third of all sites on the web. He is the founder and CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, WordPress VIP, and Jetpack. Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital, an investment and research company.

Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. He currently splits his time between Houston, New York, and San Francisco. Matt blogs at ma.tt and matt.blog. You can follow him on Twitter at: @photomatt.

About Josepha

Josepha is currently Executive Director of the WordPress project, helping to coordinate and guide volunteer efforts across the ecosystem. Since 2015 Josepha has worked behind the scenes as lead of the open-source division at Automattic. Her work includes financial planning, sponsorship relations, volunteer training programs, and several diversity initiatives on a global scale.

She has recently launched an official WordPress podcast titled WP Briefing which is aimed at WordPress users, builders, and contributors of all levels. Josepha blogs at: josepha.blog. You can follow her on Twitter at: @JosephaHaden

About the session

Josepha Haden (Executive director of WordPress) and Matt Mullenweg (co-founder of WordPress) on a fireside chat where they discuss WordPress and its significance and impact in a country like India.

The session will be followed shortly by a live Q&A session with Josepha Haden, moderated by Shilpa Shah.

Speaker Announcement: Daisy Olsen and Niharika Sanadhya on “From Design to Page – Using the WordPress block editor to implement a landing page design”

Posted on by Hari Shanker R
Daisy Olsen

Daisy Olsen and Niharika Sanadhya will be jointly delivering a session on the topic From Design to Page – Using the WordPress block editor to implement a landing page design. This session will be held on the weekend of 13th and 14th February 2021. The schedule will soon be announced – keep following this space!

About Daisy

Daisy has worked in and around the WordPress community since 2007. She has spoken at WordCamps in New York City, Boston, and Chicago. She also helped to organize the first WordCamp Boston in 2010. Currently, she works for Automattic as a Developer Relations contributor on the WordPress open source project. In her spare time, you’ll often find her listening to audio books while knitting. She loves to take road trips with her family and will often spend many weeks throughout the year visiting different places.

Daisy’s Twitter handle is: @DaisyOlsen

About Niharika

Niharika started her career as a Graphic Designer with a leading Digital Marketing agency in India. She has worked with clients from varied niches for their social media graphics, and website design needs. Currently, she is working in the graphic design niche as a freelancer, while establishing her brand – POPxDESI.com, which is an online store for imitation jewellery and home decor.

Niharika’s Twitter handle is: @nikohlife

About the session

The WordPress block editor brings a powerful page building experience to your content creation process. Learn how blocks can be used to create complex design as Daisy and Niharika work together to tap into the power of the block editor to create a landing page in WordPress based on a landing page design concept.

Speaker Announcement: Imran Sayed on “Block-Based Themes – The Future Of Full Site Editing In WordPress”

Posted on by Hari Shanker R
Sudar Muthu

Pronouns: He/him

Sudar Muthu is a WordPress plugin developer from Chennai, India who works as Lead Web Engineer at 10up.


Sudar is involved with the WordPress community for more than a decade and has contributed back to the community by speaking at various WordPress events, helping to organize WordPress related community events like WordCamps, Meetups, Do Action etc and by contributing to WordPress core.