via wptavern.com => original post link
Michelle Frechette, Director of Community Engagement at StellarWP, has launched a new independent project called WP Speakers that helps event organizers find available speakers for WordPress meetups, WordCamps, podcasts, and other events. The site offers a database of speakers that is free to join and free to search.
When speakers sign up, they include a bio, headshot, location, languages they speak, topics, expertise, and contact information. They can also specify if they identify being from an underrepresented group. In the short amount of time the site has been live, WP Speakers has added 149 registered speakers who are ready and willing to share their WordPress knowledge at both virtual and in-person events.
“As a meetup organizer for my local WordPress meetup, I’m constantly searching for speakers to present,” Frechette said. “On one hand the pandemic made it harder to keep coming up with fresh meetup content, but on the other hand, it allowed me to connect to speakers globally as all of our meetings were moved online. But even with all of the speakers in the world now able to present, it was still hard to think of topics and then source speakers. As well-connected as I am in WordPress, I couldn’t even imagine how much more difficult it might be for someone who didn’t know a lot of speakers personally. So WP Speakers was born.”