Avery Swartz is a Toronto-based award-winning web designer, consultant, speaker, and tech skills instructor. A self-described design geek, she helps demystify the web for small business owners, charities, and arts organizations. Avery offers a friendly and casual approach with all her projects.

In addition to her web design work, Avery is the founder and CEO of Camp Tech—a learning hub that provides practical tech training in a fun and friendly environment. Avery provides on-site instruction for corporations and has facilitated interactive technology workshops for over 1000 students.

Avery is the Web Director of the Art Canada Institute, acts as a Digital Advisor for Willow Breast & Hereditary Cancer Support, and teaches Digital Publishing & Production at Ryerson University. Avery regularly appears on CTV News as a guest tech expert.

Panel session

Why did you decide to speak?

I’ve learned so much about building a business (two businesses, to be precise) and I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I hope to share my knowledge with others, so they can learn from me and hopefully not repeat some of my blunders! I want to share the knowledge that I wish I had myself 5 years ago.

What attracted you to WordPress in the first place?

I first started using WordPress because of its CMS capabilities (I was previously making HTML, CSS and Javascript websites that my clients couldn’t update themselves). I started using it more and more, and now love building with WordPress, sharing it with my clients, and teaching beginners how to use it.

What is your favourite plugin or theme, and why?

Akismet, because it’s light, lean, and does a great job (for the most part) keeping comment spam away from me and my clients.

What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Toronto?

Spending time with the Toronto WordPress community. Everyone is so friendly and we have a great time together – I can’t wait to catch up with my WordPress pals that I haven’t seen since last year’s WordCamp.