6th April marked the 1st ever
Mozilla event in the city of
Nasik. Nasik a city in the Maharashtra province of India is well known as a pilgrimage destination and also a wine capital. Students from various engineering colleges from Nasik were interested in learning more about the organization that gave them their favourite browser
Firefox.
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| Event Poster |
The Mozilla Community Nashik, starting their Mozilla journey and joining our convoy with their 1st event
"Webmaker init() Nashik".
Mozilla
Webmaker was the obvious choice for the event, because it is about creating your own web. We wanted to convert the attendees into Webmakers who will move from being consumers to creators of the web.
Webmaker init(), focused on Webmaking, along with topics like Firefox OS, Mozilla contributions and 15 glorious years of Mozilla.
As a part of
Mozilla India Community, spreading the open source ideology and Open Web mission, Mozilla Reps
Ankit Gadgil and
Gauthamraj Elango hosted this event to spread Web Literacy. The Community from Nashik moved in with the Mozilla universe with their 1st steps forward and ready to contribute as Mozilla celebrates it 15 glorious years of Open Web.
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| Registrations |
The event was an initial step to form a Mozilla community presence in the wine capital city of Nashik.
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| Mozilla Reps with Volunteers |
The students from
NDMVP-KBT College of Engineering took this initiative to volunteer for the event.
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| College Principle addressing the audience |
The event was inaugurated by the college principal and a speech from the HOD.
The kick off was registered with introduction to FOSS, open source and Mozilla by
Mozilla Rep Ankit Gadgil. The audience enjoyed the interactive session.
Then followed introduction to Webmaker and its tools like
Thimble,
Popcorn Maker and
X-ray goggles.
Attendees then moved to hacking the web with thimble. They started creating their own web pages with enthusiasm and interest.
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| Ankit Gadgil on FOSS |
The attendees were a mix of web developers and novices.
As speakers and trainer we followed a simple plan, we introduced them to basic real time web page building with Thimble. Let the attendees create what they loved. After a web page creation as a small exercise, we awarded the best thimble page, with some swags.
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| Attendees working with Thimble |
We gave them 4 themes to build on viz:
- Picture Gallery,
- Me and my world,
- 5 Things I like the most,
- Wildlife and Us
and also gave them freedom to choose any other theme they liked.
This helped all to think fast and the creativity flowed.
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| Working in Groups |
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| Ankit Gadgil on Mozilla |
We grouped the participants in 2-3 each. This approach was adopted because, when we work alone we have only a single line of thinking and execution. But in groups ideas flash from different minds thus increasing the creativity and innovation. Plus every body develops a bond with the creation and the group at the end of the day.
Then we told all the attendees to build something amazing with thimble and promised them swags for the best pages. All the participant soon got engrossed into the depth of thimble and started creating new possibilities on the web.
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| Hacking the web |
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| Mozilla |
We had a refreshment break and were soon back with hacking.
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| Thimble Projects |
Then 1/2 hour later, we introduced X-ray goggles to the attendees. They were amazed by the power of the tool and loved its simplicity. Even the web developers present liked the way X-ray goggles work.
Soon getting a new helpful tool everyone was super excited to hack with a new found zest. They enjoyed working with X-ray goggles and created new hacks.
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| We will save it ! |
Popcorn maker was then introduced to the attendees. The shear beauty of the project was the highlight of the event. We selected the best thimble and Hackasaurus pages and the winners were presented with some exclusive Mozilla swags by reps Mentor Gauthamraj Elango.
A small FOSS and Mozilla Quiz was hosted by Ankit Gadgil and the winners were awarded swags for correct answers.
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| Fun with Firefox |
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| Happy to be associated |
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| YAY !! we are Webmakers. |
As the attendees thought that only the winners were getting the prizes, the surprise was let out and every body was distributed Swags. All the attendees were happy to have hacked the web and received exclusive Mozilla swags for their work. It was awesome to see Happy and satisfied faces among the attendees. Thus we felt, "Yes, we did achieve something today".
Our learnings from the event:
- Creativity and innovation flows while working in groups. Breaking people into small groups helped them feel more creative.
- While teaching webmaker tools, teach Thimble prior to X-ray Goggles
- Give participants some themes to work on.
- Popcorn maker best explained using a theme.
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| Organizing team |
We were amazed with a turnout of 120+ attendees at the event and surely everyone had nice memories and something good to take away.
A vote of thanks to all volunteers and HOD of college Prof. Mukhedkar for the support was followed with shouts and cheers of
"
Mozilla - Mozilla - Mozilla"
The event concluded with the slogan:
" We are freedom, we are the Open Web, we are Mozilla " cheering all around the venue.
The volunteers enjoyed an after event party for their hard work and promptness.
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| Vineyard visit |
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| Mozilla Fan "Raj" |
Reps Gauthamraj Elango and Ankit Gadgil visited
, Nasik as a event success trip.
Nasik to Pune travel followed with a chilly night bike ride to the Pune Airport concluded the Webmaker init() Nasik experience.
********************************* Links ***********************************
======== Webmaker init() Nasik: 6th April, 2013 ========
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Webmaker init(), focused on Webmaking, along with topics like Firefox OS, Mozilla contributions and 15 glorious years of Mozilla.
