galaxyk.github.io

2014 in a Nutshell

2015-03-10T00:00:00Z

2014 in a Nutshell

I love tacos!

FSA Bootcamp India

2015-02-17T00:00:00Z

FSA Bootcamp India

This is a pilot event and there will more such trainings in the future!

Last weekend on Feb 14, we invited 50 Firefox Student Ambassadors from different states in India to join us at the Mozilla Community Space in Bangalore for a fun-filled bootcamp. This is a one day event in Bangalore, our biggest FSA focussed event so far in India after revamping the program. We received 80 applicants and selected 50 of them to attend the training.

Firefox Student Ambassadors is one of the biggest and active ambassador programs in India. As I write, we have 28790 registered students globally with 16700 students from India.

It was a packed agenda for the day filled with awesomeness, live video talks, ice breakers and hands-on sessions .

Arcadio Lainez, Product Marketing Manager gave us a live demo of Firefox Hello explaining in brief all the features and future plans for Hello. It's a feature about communication and staying in touch with the people while you browse the Internet. Firefox Hello is built in to the browser using WebRTC (Real-Time Technology) that powers the Web.

. @ArcadioLainez talking about @firefox hello. #FSABootcamp /@CupofTJ @mozilla @mozstudents pic.twitter.com/vmVxUmc7V8
— Vineel Reddy Pindi (@vineelreddy) February 14, 2015

TJ, Community Manager for FSA spoke about the program insights on how we are looking the ambassador program in providing career development and a way to gain new skills with 'Approach, Engage, Equip and Empower' idea and not just a marketing program. 2015 will be the year for creating more resources (training), increasing the community with active participation from the Firefox Clubs in the universities, community participation.

We <3 you too @CupofTJ 😊 pic.twitter.com/YT2GmBU0c7
— MozSpace Bangalore (@MozSpaceBLR) February 14, 2015

Icebreaker! The ambassadors were divided into 4 groups and asked to discuss and write about:

The things I like about Mozilla
- Working with like minded people
- Loads of events
- Firefox OS
- FSA Program being one of the largest student ambassador community where we dont have to be a technical person
- Mozilla products and privacy
- Mozilla encourages people to contribute and gain Knowledge about open web
- Maker Party
- Learing things which I dont know and sharing things which i already know

One thing I want to learn
- To develop apps for FirefoxOS
- Get to know about other FSA's activities
- Tips to grow regional communities
- How to conduct events
- How diversific I can get
- Talk, communicate and learn from others

What attracted me?

A Mozilla booth organized by a Mozilla Rep
From an Open Session organized by a Rep
Local community events
Recognition
Getting a beginner badge
Friends who are writing code for Firefox
FSA of the month

The FSA Exec Board members (Galaxy, Gauthamraj, Viswa, Biraj) explained briefly about the program structure, recognition (schwag yay!), contribution ways to Mozilla, club activities, club lead training, IRC and the day ended with a FirefoxOS hackathon.

A word about FSA structure.. ;) @GalaxyK @GauthRaj @MozillaIN @MozSpaceBLR @vineelreddy @CupofTJ pic.twitter.com/OxiNPFXXe9
— damarla sumanth (@Sumanth_Damarla) February 14, 2015

Thanks to our RAL's (Santosh Viswanatham, Bala Subramaniyan) & Vineel Reddy for joining and helping with the event. It's safe to say everyone had a good time, and it was amazing to have a group of ambassadors at one place!

The participants gave feedback that the bootcamp helped them motivate and are equipped with resources to share the knowledge with others. We look forward to seeing the ambassadors at the universities by putting all the knowledge they gained into action.

We had a video shoot with the ambassadors introducing themselves in their language. It is under post production and should be out sometime soon! :)

Click through the photos till then: https://flic.kr/s/aHsk52xNyj.

Add your blogposts, learnings, pictures in the comments. I'll add them to the blog.

Hashtags: #FSABootcamp, #MozSpaceBLR

Crowd source blogs/teaching kits/pictures:

FSA Bootcamp teaching kit by Sumanth Damarla
Blogpost by Viswaprasath

5 Years of Mozilla

2015-01-04T00:00:00Z

5 Years of Mozilla

I am neither leaving the community nor taking a break from my contribution!

I feel awesome

There are a lot of reasons I contribute to Open Source. One, is to give back something to the people from whose work I've benefitted greatly, to get to collaborate with smart and congenial people and, honestly, to build my resume! What I did not anticipate was that getting accepted into a community makes you feel so special. The Mozilla community was greatly supportive to me the entire way, with trainings, conferences, online meetings, work weeks when they could have done even without me. I truly felt that I was being accepted into a community .

I do. Like, a lot! :D

The thought of having even the tiniest effect on a ubiquitous piece of software is thrilling. Your name on the beautiful Firefox monument in San Francisco and on the Mozilla contributor credits page. This thrill may be a narcissistic one, but I feel it's alright to revel in it. I don't see anything wrong with feeling satisfied that you've applied your skills to promote a product that millions of people use to browse the web.

Beyond the code

I am a terminal junkie and spend most of my time at work writing/forking code which I am not fond of. I like attending events, it is the place where you get to meet people with different backgrounds to talk, collaborate, learn and create. Also, I am shy and don't like giving talks or speaking at conferences. There are a lot more things that interests me - events, conferences, engaging with the users, community building, social media et. cetera. Over the course of years, I organized events from kitchen table meetups to a fully packed conference for Mozilla which created a great impact in one form or the other. I now lead the Events & Campaings task force of Mozilla India. Few of the events:

There are companies that do not let their employees spend time on external projects. I am quite happy to say that the company I work for, do not have that problem, on the contrary, they even motivate employees to contribute back to open source or any volunteer service they are interested in.

It's rewarding

You get to meet, collaborate and learn from a ton of smart people.
Drive a program you love with the help of others.
It is through Firefox Student Ambassadors I started my contribution and now I am the President of FSA Exec Board.
You get to launch a product (FirefoxOS) in your country. Ain't that cool?
You learn to be awake all night (and day).
I lied. I did give a couple of talks.
More here

It's fun

Portland Work Week

Now what?

You probably already know, but in case you don’t, then we have a volunteer-run Mozilla Community Space in Bangalore supported by Mozilla for people passionate about the open web to meet, share, learn, hack and collaborate in person. It is how great outcomes happen and great products are made. Poke/tweet to the Space Wrangler, i.e., me, if you wan't to join us at the community space.

Our first tweet from the #MozSpaceBLR 😊
— MozSpace Bangalore (@MozSpaceBLR) November 9, 2014

"Contributing to open source is a great high; I can’t wait for the coming years!"