The word ‘engineer’ is derived from the Latin ‘ingeniare’ which means ‘to contrive or devise‘. Dwain Maralack, our next speaker, is going to tell us exactly how WordPress helped him become an engineer, and we all can learn from his example.

While WordPress is loved the world over for its ease of putting together websites, there is no end of opportunities to skilfully engineer complex solutions.

Dwain’s will describe his life’s rocky journey from being a beginner to where he stands now, as an engineer and a developer. He will talk about how WordPress has helped him learn more about software engineering and design patterns, and how the platform has exposed him to other technologies as well.

Furthermore, Dwain will throw light on the opportunities for developers to learn more about the inner workings of WordPress.

Dwain Maralack is a developer at Automattic, and describes himself as a servant, husband, programmer plus an all round fun-loving guy. He hails from South Africa and has spoken at WordCamp Capetown in the past.

Problem solving techniques have been through many years of evolution.

Traditionally, we would split up a problem into multiple parts and solve each one before trying to integrate every solution into a final one. Design thinking is different, and Harshadewa Ariyasinghe will explain why, with practical examples you can take home. His talk is aptly titled “How Design Thinking can Change Everything”.

Design thinking aims to spark creativity by channeling your energy towards empathy, visualization, building working prototypes and more. It is often marked by a series of activities, and it promises to rewrite the entire approach to problem solving.

The speaker Harshadewa works as Consultant, Product and Tech, at Yonder Music Inc. He leads the product integration work with the telco counterparts in Sri Lanka & Maldives. Before joining Yonder Music, Harsha has worked at Cambio where he led the Business Analysis and Product Design function.

He has also worked at JKCS and E-Solutions where he designed solutions for multiple domains ranging from Aviation, Middleware, Insurance and E-Commerce. Harsha has over 11 years of experience in both solutions design and software engineering. He got his bachelor’s degree from London Metropolitan University and an MBA from PIM – Sri Jayewardenepura University .

Our WordCamp will bring in a pure Sri Lankan flavor in the form of two lightning talks in Sinhala and Tamil, delivered by Asith Wijenayake and Prasath Nadarajah. These speakers are an addition to our existing array of confirmed international and local speakers.

Sinhala is spoken by nearly 16 million people as a first language in Sri Lanka, and an additional 4 million people who learn it as a second language. Tamil speakers in Sri Lanka number nearly 4 million. Source: Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka.

Both Sinhala and Tamil are ancient languages, and with WordPress’ core principles of inclusivity and respect for local cultures, we are proud to have Asith and Prasath speaking at the event to help boost the platform’s adoption in Sri Lanka.

Asith’s topic in Sinhala will be “WordPress ජීවන වෘත්තියක් ලෙස”, which means “WordPress as a Career”. In his own words:

WordPress ගැන පෙර අසා හෝ නොඅසා තිබිය හැක. කෙසේ වෙතත් WordPress වනාහී අද වන විට ලොව තිබෙන විශලතම සහ ජනප්‍රියම Content Management System( CMS) එක ලෙස වගේම දැනට ලෝකයේ ජනප්‍රියතම බ්ලොගින් මෘදුකාංගයක් ලෙස හැදින්විය හැක. සංක්‍යාත්මකව ගතහොත් දැනට ලෝකයේ ඇති වෙබ් අඩවි සංඛ්‍යාව බ්ලියනයක් පමණ වේ යැයි ගනන් බලා තිබේ. එයින් සියයට 25 කටත් වැඩි ප්‍රතිශතයක් WordPress ඇසුරු කොට සාදන ලද ඒවාය.
එසේ ගනන් බැලුවගොත් ඔබ දයිනික අන්තර්ජාල භාවිතයේදී ඇතුල්වන වෙබ් අඩවි වලින් හතරෙන් එකක්ම WordPress මෘදුකාංගය භාවිතාකර නිපදවා තිබිය හැකි වැඩි ඉඩක් පවතී.
ලොව පුරා මෙලෙස පැතිරී ඇත WordPress කියන්නේ නිකම්ම නිකම් තවත් එක් මෘදුකාංගයක් පමණක් ම නොවන බවට මෙම සංඛ්‍යා දත්ත සාක්ෂි දරයි.
මෙවර WordCamp කොළඹ දී WordPress ජීවන වෘත්තියක් ලෙස භාවිතා කරන්නේ කෙසේදැයි කතා කිරීම මම බලාපොරොත්තු වෙමි.

— අසිත් විජේනායක

Prasath will speak in Tamil on the subject “WordPress இல் உங்கள் வலைப்பதிவு”, which translates as “How to use WordPress to start your online blog”. In his own words:

இன்றைய விஞ்ஞான உலகில் இணையத்தில் எமது பிரத்தேயேக வலைத்தளம் மிகவும் அத்தியாவசியமாகிவிட்டது. எமது தனிப்பட்ட கருத்துக்களையும் சிந்தனைகளையும் இணையத்தில் பதிவு செய்யும் இடமாக அது மாறியுள்ளது. அத்தகைய வலைப்பதிவு கருவிகளில் WordPress மிக முக்கிய இடத்தை வகிக்கிறது. எமது இந்த உரையாடலில் நாம் WordPress ஐ பயன்படுத்தி எவ்வாறு எமது வலைப்பதிவை மேட்கொள்ளுவது பற்றி விரிவாக ஆராய்வோம்.

— பிரசாத் நடராஜா