Category Archives: Events & Meetups
FOSDEM 2014
Ever since the time I first got involved in the Free and Open Source community I would hear about people’s experiences about FOSDEM [Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting]. If you are into Open Source communities, then apparently FOSDEM was the place to be. A few years back when I was nothing more than a wide eyed geek attending events out of curiosity to know what the hoopla was all about, I would at times meet people who would talk about someone that they know off, who had been to FOSDEM and I could not help but wonder about how big a tech event can be so big that people would would compare it to the holy grail of FOSS events.
Fast forward a few years, and I got to have a first hand experience of it and that too from the driver’s seat. Not only did I attend FOSDEM this year, but I was also one of the speakers at the Mozilla Dev-Room. I had a joint talk on “Developing Webapps for Firefox OS – The Efficient & Simplistic Approach” with Robert Kaiser (KaiRo).
Me and KaiRo During Our Talk!
In all, this year, four of us [Me, Priyanka, Soumya and Srikar] were invited as speakers at the Mozilla Dev-Room at FOSDEM from India, and it was also the first one for all of us. Even though all four of us are pretty much veteran FOSS evangelists, yet FOSDEM was something that was pretty new to us. Needless to say, we were excited! It was like we were back to being the curious geeky newbie souls that we were just a few years back. And I must say, we enjoyed every moment of the experience to the fullest.
One of the most striking things for me was the fact that for the first time, in the last couple of years I felt nervous while getting on the stage [which, I’m pretty sure was quite evident in my talk]. However, I’m quite sure that it wasn’t peer pressure, or the number of people looking at me in the room [the room was packed with 350+ of the geekiest people from around the world], I’d guess it was more because of the fact that it was something right out of an adolescent day dream for me. Somehow, however, I enjoyed this feeling all over again. I felt like the ever too curious techie geek from a few years back again.
What I do want mention here is after quite a long time [a couple of years maybe?] I went berserk with swag again. I guess being surrounded by the choicest of official goodies representing all the things that you use in your everyday life does have that effect on one. And, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone as well. There were people all around me jumping from one booth to the other with the curious glean in their eyes which can easily compete with that of a bookworm left free in the world’s best library without a care in the world. Knowledge flow was the mantra here, and then of course there were the swags.
Swag galore from FOSDEM
I have to confess, I ended up with a pretty good stockpile of stickers and other similar goodies, thanks to my sudden bout of childishness. But again, who can resist the temptation of picking up a few of the most sought after swags in the Free and Open source communities.
I won’t write much about how my talk went though, I would rather leave it for you to see and understand. For the sake of simplicity, I’m embedding the video recording of my talk along with the slides from FOSDEM here. Do check it out and leave me a note, about what you think of it. [Just remember, I was a bit nervous ;)].
Slides: Developing Webapps for Firefox OS – The Efficient & Simplistic Approach
Video: Developing Webapps for Firefox OS – The Efficient & Simplistic Approach
A special note here for Benoit Leseul: You are one of the nicest and wonderful person that I have ever met. Thanks a lot for taking care of us during FOSDEM! 🙂
ReMo Camp 2013 – Madrid
Earlier this year from August 30th to September 1st, 2013, I was invited to Madrid, Spain, to take part in Mozilla Reps Camp as a Mozilla Reps mentor to discuss the roadmap ahead for the Mozilla Reps Program.
ReMo Camp is an annual event / meeting where the leadership of the Mozilla Reps program, comprising of Council members and Reps mentors, meet for 3 days. The meeting comprised of presentations, breakout sessions and discussions to draft the 2013/2014 Mozilla Reps program roadmap. This was the second time the entire program leadership met and worked together in person, the first being in Berlin in 2012.
Even though there were discussions on some pretty serious topics, we made sure that we had our fair share of fun as well, starting from wacky yellow construction jackets to crazy late night wandering in the streets of Madrid.
Amidst all the serious discussions and fun times, one thing that stood out quite prominently was the high spirits that was evident among all the participants throughout the event. I’m sure that future of the Mozilla Reps program is quite bright and secure in the presence of such wonderful people and it is going to grow by leaps and bounds in the upcoming days. 🙂
The Greek Experience – Remo Training Days
Reps at Greece for #remotrainingdays
- The Reps spend the first day observing a Hive Athens Pop-Up event.
- Then the next 2 days are dedicated to developing local strategy and teaching skills; and finally
- The Reps apply the lessons they have on a one day event teaching webmaking to a group of 100 students at the British Council.
The outcome from this event was phenomenal, with over 40 events being planned for the next 3 months to build local Webmaker mentor team and prototype events for the summer campaign, code-named Remix Party. The vibrancy of the geographical locations for which events were planned speak for themselves. From Taiwan to Indonesia, India to Mauritius, Kenya, Uganda, Romania, UK, France, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada + beyond, we had events being planned everywhere.
It was an amazing example of Hive + Webmaker Reps, with the local community stepping up to host the event. The energy levels of everyone at the event spoke for themselves.
Here are the links for some of the most awesome things from the event:-
- RemoTrainingDays Etherpad, inc. agenda: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/RTD
- The things Reps want to work on/make/contribute to: https://docs.google.com/a/zythepsary.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aku8434q8_LPdHVHSU9CNlpkZVRZQ0U5Q0VtS0RhMHc#gid=6
Oops! Almost forgot – we also made our own Harlem Shake Video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/tn4Evp8BN1U
Mozilla Carnival Pune – 15th September 2012
Excited to share that we will be celebrating the success of Mozilla Summer Code Party event(s) in the country along with the Software Freedom Day on 15th of September 2012 at SICSR, Pune.
Agenda:
The Mozilla carnival starts at 9.00 AM, the topics include:
– Mozilla Summer Code Party
– Software Freedom Day
– Mozilla projects and Initiatives
– Hands-on session focused on WebMaking and Localization
– WoMoz (Women in Open source/ IT) — Get-involved with Mozilla
– Quiz
– BOF sessions
(Schedule will be updated soon)
What is Summer Code Party?
This summer, Mozilla came up with a unique global experiment by inviting people around the world to make and learn something amazing with the web.This turned out to be the world’s first-ever “Summer Code Party.” Started on June 23.
Our community members from across the country hosted the code party, got together, made things, played with the Webmaker projects, and learned a lot. These include MozParty Pune, BVP Delhi, IIT Delhi, Anthiyur, Erode and many other. The response has been amazing and its an incredible experience for the community for its role in making for a more web literate world. The efforts, small and big have been recognized through out the global community proving the power of contribution.
Mozilla Carnival and much more..
Mozilla Carnival will be witnessing the second pan India community meetup(informal). This is a special event to us, as some of us would be meeting for the first time! The community members include, localizers, student reps, mozilla reps and webmakers.
One of the take away points at the previous Mozilla India community meetup was building a community of Women in Mozilla & Open Source. At this event, Priyanka and Hema will be introducing the WoMoz (Women in Mozilla and open source) program, its activities, goals and how one can get involved with the program.
Come join us! Lets Meet, Make & Learn amazing things!
REGISTERING:
- RSVP here.
- Join the Facebook event page.
- This event is free to attend and by registering only.
- The venue can accommodate around 100 people.
#HASHTAG:
- For tweeting, photos and all use #hashtag: #MozPartyPune & #MozCarnival
CONTACT:
If you have any questions or doubts, contact:
MozParty 2012, Pune
Mozilla Summer Code Party 2012, Pune
On Saturday, 23rd June 2012 we organized MozParty Pune at Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research, as a kickoff event for Mozilla Summer Code Party. We had a good mix of college students and working professionals as attendees for the event. There were around 75-90 attendees in total for the event. We had talk sessions as well as hands-on sessions and workshops.
The day started with an Introduction to Mozilla Summer Code Party by me, where I talked about what exactly Mozilla’s Summer Code Party is, and to how to spread awareness about the open web. The audience seemed quite interested in the idea, and looked quite excited to find out about the various ways by which they can do so.
The next session was conducted by Soumya Deb (better known as Debloper), on How Websites Work. For this session he showed the audience Google’s Story of Send, and another video on How the DNS works. The animated videos were a great hit among the audience.
Next up, it was Ankit and Faisal who took the stage one after the other. Ankit had prepared a lovely presentation in Latex about the Mozilla Story where talked about how Mozilla became what it currently is, including the various technologies from Mozilla. Faisal talked about the various Add-ons, personas other cool stuff that users can use to brighten up their Firefox experience and also about the various security aspects of Firefox.
The surprise of the day however, came when Kinshuk arrived at the event. Even though he wasn’t supposed to be present at the event due to some family commitments, still he made time and came for the event. And to top it all, he even took a session on FOSS & its relevance to Students. He also talked about the student reps program and how college students can participate and contribute to Mozilla, throughout the day in various discussions with the audience.
Post lunch, we started with a workshop on Hackasaurus, and various other Webmaking tools like Thimble & X-Ray Goggles, conducted by me. I explained various aspects of these tools to the audience and conducted a competition to see who could make the best remixed sites from the available projects at the Thimble website. We showcased the best best results at the events, and awarded a few extra swags the ones with the best sites.
Next, Soumya took over the dias and took a couple of back to back sessions on Basic Web Technologies and Apps in HTML5 & B2G. These were one of the most interactive and awaited sessions by the audience. Soumya explained these topics using interactive demos and got the audience involved as well.
At the end of it all, we explained various ways by which the audience could contribute and get involved with Mozilla. We talked about the student reps and Mozilla reps programs, and also got 12 people sign up for the student reps program.
The links to the various slides during the session as well as the links for some of sites created using Thimble are included below:-
Introduction To Mozilla Summer Code Party: Sayak
The Mozilla Story: Ankit
Using Firefox like a Boss: Faisal Aziz
How Websites Work: Debloper
FOSS and it’s relevance to Students: Kinshuk
Web Making Tools – Hackasaurus & Thimble: Sayak
Basic Web Technology: Debloper
Apps in HTML5 & B2G: Debloper
How To Contribute / Community & Development:
Kinshuk
Sayak
Hackasaurus Published Pages:
Event Page: wiki.mozilla.org/MozParty_Pune
Etherpad: etherpad.mozilla.org/20120623-Pune-Workshop
Flickr Album: www.flickr.com/photos/kinshuksunil/sets/72157630325471864/
Facebook Album: facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151053643809188.493002.677614187
Drupal Meetup at SICSR, Model Colony, Pune
There is going to be a Drupal meetup on Sunday, the 8th of April @ Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research with Mr. Jacob Singh, from Acquia.
Mr.Jacob Singh is the learning director at Acquia and he is coming to India to promote Drupal.
There are going to be sessions on various Drupal projects, development activities and the likes.
Also there will be discussion sessions where everyone can share
thoughts about there experiences with Drupal.
Date :- Sunday 8th April 2012
Time :- 10.00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Venue :- Lab #207, SICSR, Atur Centre, Pune-411016
People who are interested can please register here so that we’ll get to know the exact count of people :-
Sayak Sarkar 