Ifo Ikede, is Isoko, from the Niger-Delta region of the west coast of Africa. They are in the launch phase of a social media and marketing company, which will focus on helping non-profits and businesses to better market to clients from non-English and non-French cultural background.
Their experience as an immigrant to Canada, as well as active participation in settlement for both immigrant and refugee groups as well as their involvement in first nations and African-Canadian integration issues puts Ifo in a unique position to be able to provide insights from lived experience as well as the thousands of years of wisdom from the ancestors, to create healthy and healing communities.
Ifo is addicted to drumming and dancing, often dancing 3 to 5 times a week, is a competitive soccer player and martial artists… and like many African grandmas loves to cook and share yummy treats…
What’s been your best experience with WordPress?
Meeting the lovely and welcoming folks at the Halifax WordPress meetup and becoming an active member. Also being able to help local and international non-profits use WordPress as a solid solution for their on-line needs.
I love how easy it is to use WordPress to provide solutions. The collection of plugins allow one to easily accomplish just about anything today… that 20 years ago, would have taken an IT team and 100s or thousands of dollars to deploy. Today we can do much better with WordPress and a handful of plugins.
This helps to reduce the barrier to enter for e-commerce or just having an engaging online presence.
Tell us a bit about your WordCamp Halifax talk.
I will be leading a discussion about Diversity and Inclusion in WordPress communities…
You will want to attend this workshop if you ever wondered:
How may we grow our local WordPress community by actively and in practicum embracing and celebrating diversity?
and/or
How may we make our spaces and events truly safe for women, visible-minorities and other marginalized, under-represented groups and sectors of our community?
We will host a facilitated, vibrant and inclusive group discussion in which strategies may be shared and further developed with a view to increasing outreach to underrepresented communities within our larger community. We will also dialogue and exchange ideas and stratagem around making all spaces increasingly more welcoming and supportive to diverse groups of gendered, non-gendered, mental health and racialised communities.
We’ll begin with a brief overview outlining some of the challenges and positing solutions based in some measure on proven successful examples, including those of WordPress.com, and a bit of my personal journey in the IT sector.
At the end, I will include a resource list to provide folks the opportunity of digging deeper and to facilitate change withing their organizations going forward.
What’s your favourite thing about WordCamps, or if your first one… what are you looking forward to?
Looking forward to meeting new people, and learning how I can better serve the communities that I work with.
Let’s get philosophical… what are you most proud of?
I am most proud to be Isoko, from the Niger-Delta region of West-Africa, and to continue the tradition of my ancestors by living by the adage “it takes a village to raise a child” .. and to practice servant leadership
I am proud to live by the principle that “everything I know to be true could be false” – that leaves me open to learn and unlearn.
I am proud to have been liberated from my JOB/Boss since Nov 2016, and happily self-employed since then.
Session Details
Linking with last year’s lecture (“A Field Guide to Caring for a Developer”) exploring mental health. We shall build on that and discuss diversity and inclusion in the IT sector.
You will want to attend this workshop if you ever wondered:
How may we grow our local WordPress community by actively and in practicum embracing and celebrating diversity?
and/or
How may we make our spaces and events truly safe for women, visible-minorities and other marginalized, under-represented groups and sectors of our community?
We will host a facilitated, vibrant and inclusive group discussion in which strategies may be shared and further developed with a view to increasing outreach to underrepresented communities within our larger community. We will also dialogue and exchange ideas and stratagem around making all spaces increasingly more welcoming and supportive to diverse groups of gendered, non-gendered, mental health and racialised communities.
We’ll begin with a brief overview outlining some of the challenges and positing solutions based in some measure on proven successful examples, including those of WordPress.com, and a bit of my personal journey in the IT sector.
At the end, I will include a resource list to provide folks the opportunity of digging deeper and to facilitate change withing their organizations going forward.