Forest Mars is a Network Architect and Drupal Developer who presents on a  variety of topics concerning the Future of Media including Open Source Models, Trusted Network Protocols,  and Web Video Broadcasting. He has spoken at venues such as IBM, Hunter College and numerous technical conferences.

Forest is probably best known for his work as the Architect of of New York's first WiFi Internet Service Provider and the "Two Rooms" Free Internet Cafe located in Manhattan's East Village. His background is in Cybernetics and Information Theory.

Contact him directly via forest-at-bway-dot-net.

Forest is giving a workshop entitled Introducing Joopal! (Joomla! / Drupal Architecture)

Brian Diaz is the founder and owner of Media 65.

Media 65 specializes in web based technologies, both with Open Source, commercial software products and training.

Brian has 14 years of experience in the Technology field, working as an entrepreneur, consultant and IT Director for both large and small companies.  Brian is the author and creator of the Joomla Template kit, which teaches and speeds up Joomla Template Development with Adobe Dreamweaver.

This product has been helping designers from the days of the Mambo CMS 2004 to present.

Brian is giving a workshop entitled Making Joomla Templates With Adobe Dreamweaver.

Steve is the founder of JoomlaTraining.com. He also runs Alledia.com, a leading Joomla web development firm in Atlanta, Georgia. Steve's firm has built over 200 Joomla-powered websites. Specializing in web marketing, Steve is the author of the best-selling "Joomla SEO Book," writes a popular blog about Joomla! and is an Editor at the Joomla.org Extensions Directory. He currently travels widely helping people to learn and thrive with Joomla.

Steve is presenting the workshop Search Engine Marketing Smackdown

Steve is also a GoldSponsor of our event from JoomlaTraining.com

Cory Webb is the founder and owner of Cory Webb Media, LLC, a company specializing in building custom Joomla!-powered websites for companies all over the world. Cory has been building websites with Joomla! since 2003, and he wrote a book, "Beginning Joomla! Web Site Development", that was published by Wrox in March 2009. He also founded and runs a popular Joomla! tutorial site, HowToJoomla.net, where he shares tips and tricks from his extensive experience working with Joomla!

Cory will be presenting on: Hidden Tips & Tricks

Victor Drover, a Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry, got interested in web site development during graduate school soon started started hacking content management systems shortly thereafter. After much error-based learning, Victor started building Joomla applications and now manages an extension and web development shop at dev.anything-digital.com and myrugbysite.com. In 2008, Victor joined the editorial team at the Joomla Extensions Directory where he focuses on policy decision making, extension evaluation and directory maintenance.

Anthony Ferrara is a Joomla! Core Team member, lead of the Joomla! Bug Squad, and a member of the Joomla! Developer and Joomla! Extension Directory teams.

He is a mentor for the Google Summer of Code Multi-DB Support project. He started with Mambo in 2005 and has continued with Joomla! providing the community with JoomlaPerformance, caching extensions, and his assistance. Professionally, Anthony is a PHP developer and MySQL DBA. He is a fire department volunteer, a pilot, and one who loves learning, with interests in math, physics, programming, music, good beer, and life.

He began in business at age 7 selling crafts to a local boutique. That business expanded in size to include catalog sales. From that point on he was always involved in business.

Scott became involved with the Internet in 1995 by developing a site for collectible dealers to market their wares. The site had live auctions, storefronts and content. His next large project was a review site for high end consumer goods where he created an unique indexing systems for the goods. That site closed soon after the death of its founder.

Presently Scott  advises companies big and small in all aspects of Internet related business. Open source appealed to Scott's sense that knowledge should be free and apply that knowledge should be rewarded. He discovered  Joomla in 2006, and started developing in 2007 sites. He also builds using Magneto and other platforms. Currently his Prebilt hosting division is focused on servers optimized for Joomla and Mangento.

Donna Vincent has been building websites using Joomla! for the past 4 years.  During that time she has built more than 100 sites..

She is extremely active in the Joomla! NYC Usergroup by maintaining the website for www.JoomlaNYC.org, and by not missing one meeting!   Her strengths are from the design level and from the programming level 'behind the scenes' with Joomla!  In the past few months she has been creating custom modules and programs for her clients...

In addition to her web-related projects, she was also an EDI programmer in the apparel industry for 5 years.

A self-taught programmer and life-long entrepreneur, Rafael has started several internet businesses over the years, including Dioscouri.com,  a boutique Manhattan-based web-design firm which he founded in 2007.  He was first introduced to Joomla! in February of that year.  Frustrated by Joomla's limited ACL, he wrote JUGA, an extension that attempted to address some of those limitations with the explicit aim of not hacking the core.

Thanks to Ryan...he will be getting the troops ready for Joomla!DayNYC with the opening KeyNote and end our day with the closing KeyNote...

Ryan is the man of the Penguin. Besides his commitment to the Joomla Project, he is on the Open Source Matters board and working for his own company, Picnet. Within this company, he has organized various open source-related PinguinDays. Ryan is was actively involved in the first Joomla Day in the USA as well as many other events like Pizza, Bugs, and Fun parties in the USA.

Ryan joined the Joomla Events Team as mentor for the North American region. He supports the Joomla Project at conferences as a speaker and support person.

Barrie North has over 15 years of experience with the Internet, as a user, designer, and teacher.

A certified teacher.  He has spent over eight years in the education field, becoming steadily more involved in web technology and teaching technology integration to teachers and worked as an IT consultant for two new schools pioneering in the use of technology.  As well as template design, he has provided web marketing/SEO, usability, and Joomla! training classes for his clients.

Mitch Pirtle, our JUG of NYC co-Founder is currently CTO at Gilt Travel.  Mitch's high-energy approach, backed by decades of experience, will provide you with inside knowledge you simply can't find anywhere else.

A serial entrepreneur, Mitch wins the unofficial "Founder's Award" from the CMS Association. When you read his history, you'll get a taste of what that means:

Tom Deryckere is software architect at Siruna.com at the New York office. He has a Masters degree in Electrotechnical engineering from Ghent University (Belgium).

After working as a  researcher and project Coördinator at the Interdisciplinary Institute of Broadband working on new media projects inclucing recommender systems, mobile services and interactive television, he has joined the Siruna forces. Tom has been active in the Drupal community since 2005 and is joining the Joommla forces in helping in the process of creating mobile Joomla sites.

Elin is President of Open Source Matters, the non profit that manages financial, legal and organizational issues for the Joomla! Project.

She also has made over 5000 posts on the Joomla forums, written most of the Joomla! 1.0 FAQs, and is a member of the Joomla! Bug Squad.