Mozilla Kenya

This year’s Mozilla Festival is probably one of the best events I’ve ever attended as a Mozillian and as Rep. Maybe I feel this way because I’ve really been yawning to attend Mozfest since the first one was held three years ago in Barcelona. Also being the biggest Webmaker event under Mozilla, cialis me being part of it was just a dream come true, no doubt about that. I’d had of stories from the previous Mozfests and I’d really feel sorry for myself that I hadn’t attended and taken part in the past events. In 2012 we came close to having one of us (Mozilla Kenya) attend the 2^nd Mozilla Festival but he couldn’t due to visa denial at the British embassy.

Well preparing for this year’s event wasn’t all that smooth for us here in Kenya. And as usual visa processing is the hardest thing ever for a rep, especially when you are planning to attend an event hosted in a first world country and you are applying for your visa from any of the developing nations, trust me, it isn’t a nice experience, not even for one second !

Two of us (Hezron and I) were invited through the Mozilla Reps program to attend this year’s event but like I said, Visa… visa… issues! Hezron was not lucky enough to attend the event as his visa was denied and to my surprise, they couldn’t trace the credibility of his invitation letter despite the fact that my invitation letter was similar to his, let alone both of them having been signed by Michelle Thorne!

But then at least I was lucky to get the chance to attend this year’s event (I’m pausing to smile, just to reminisce on how happy I was when I saw the visa stamp on my passport). I remember I’d actually lost hope when Hezron’s was denied and I even went to collect my passport just a few hour before the embassy closed for the day only get such the big surprise! But I learned quite a lot from this experience with one of the strictest embassies, the British embassy!

My flight was scheduled on the same date I collected my visa and I had to rush back home, throw everything that I needed into my bag and start my journey to the airport which is a bit far from where I live with my family. I landed in Heathrow the next morning after 8 hours in the air, not so tiring but quite a long one as well. I was lucky enough to meet two other reps from India (Sayak and Soumya) who had attended the last Mozfest and so I had nothing to worry about getting lost when connecting the trains to the Hotel, yay!

I spent most of day one just walking around London with fellow Reps, that’s after checking into our rooms. The opening session would be that evening when we would all gather for dinner with all the other reps, most of whom were still on their way coming. We strolled around taking photos and catching up with on what each one of us had been up to in their home countries and obviously Mozilla Summit which was held two weeks ago dominated most of our stories. After around four hours walk around London, we went back to the hotel to rest a bit and prepare for dinner later on.

The dinner that night was full of excitement. Meeting people whom you met probably two years back and now here you are together again, nothing feels sweeter than this. I was way too excited myself and I made sure I spoke to each and every Rep who made it and even other Mozillians whom we’ve talked before and even those whom we haven’t met before. This is usually my most favorite parts of any Mozilla events, meeting new faces and hearing from different people, how things are wherever they come from, what they do as Mozillians and even what they do as individuals aside from contributing to Mozilla, I get to learn a lot from people during such moments. Day one ended with briefings on what the program was going to be like for the next day and what to expect for the rest of the days at Mozfest 2013.

Day two started quite early with breakfast at 8am and then we’d proceed to Ravensbourne college by 9am. This was definitely going to be quite a busy day as we were to use it to lay foundation for the coming two days of the festival. So it all begun with introductions on what to expect from there henceforth. Keynotes from the main hosts and organizers followed. We also got to hear from the space wranglers and session hosts just as a buildup and for us to know where each and every session was going to be conducted.

What followed next was setting-up for session hosts. Where everyone who had volunteered to host a session was introduced to their hacking area and they’d setup their space in wait for the next two days. I was involved in two booths myself, the Students Ambassadors stand and the Mozilla Reps corner as well! With the intros done, we all moved downstairs, where we had the showcase stands. We had a lot of amazing makes from different makers from all over the world. The most memorable one for me was the a creation by Mozilla Japan which was able to transmit the same vibration effect one feels on a plastic can when marbles are shaken in it on a different can connected to the former with a string! This was just off the hook, amazing indeed! There were lots of amazing makes of course, lots of them!

The second day at Mozfest was a big day! It was the first open day for the public to participate. And I can bet everyone looked forward to it. I couldn’t help wait to take part on the maker party and learn from it. We spent the better part of day two attending different sessions up and down the college premises. All of them interesting and tantalizing where you’d wish to attend some sessions but unable because their timings collided with others which were more interesting. But yes, great sessions they all were!

And finally the maker party was here that afternoon. The room was completely electrified with the numerous activities going on in every corner. Everyone seemed to smile from ear to ear enjoying the fun moments. I never expected such a big maker party, completely off the hook. And the number of volunteers who’d come from all over the world just to share their knowledge with everyone was just amazing. I’m literally smiling while writing about the maker party. I wonder how much time was used in planning for it. Thumbs up for Chris and his Hive team! Couldn’t be any better if you ask me; I still stand amazed a month later!

Day three at Mozfest wasn’t as action packed compared to day two. I spent most of it attending sessions revolving around Webmaking, for the better part of the day. That afternoon we ganged up with a few more Reps and wen to tour the famous London Bridge and the Tower Bridge as well.

I must say that I learnt so much from Mozfest, first as a rep and even more importantly as a Webmaker! I’m sure our Webmaking initiatives here in Kenya as a community will now be better from now on. I’ve gained quite a lot from other webmakers and creators from different countries and I feel so inspired!

I’m proud to be a Mozillian!

It was in mid January when I laid my hands on the first Unagis in Kenya ( Firefox OS developer phones ). The phones were delivered by Didem the lead of Mozilla WFD program and a friend I made when I attended my first MozCamp in singapore Asia. Didem was on a mission to attend Nairobi Apps Day a mega event that we staged in the capital city of Kenya attracting a attendance of about one hundred and fifty web developer.

After the very successful  event I was one of the lucky reps that were allowed to take the phones with us, try there other one was Bosire, both of us having shown the interest to test the device, develop apps and hack the OS. This got me so inspired thatI dived right away into developing apps for the Firefox marketplace. I am glad to report that I was the first Kenya and perhaps African to submit an app the Firefox marketplace. The app passed all the requirements and it was listed on the marketplace.

The app I build was a news reader for the just concluded general elections that were held in Kenya in the month of june. The app works well both on Firefox OS and Android devices.  The app is called Kenya Elections and it can be found here https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/kenya-election?src=search

I have had a number for sessions where I show developers how to package their open web apps for the Firefox market place. The sessions are mostly intaractive and we offen end up with a few prototype apps. In the near future I believe more Kenyans will be able to post apps into the firefox market place.

Many locals have had a chance to interact with the Firefox OS device when the attend events organized by the local Mozilla community and they give very positive feedback though the OS is quite unfinished. I will soon together with other reps receive the Keon which is the current developer phone Firefox OS for testing. I will be able to share my other device with someone else from the local community and I believe the same goes for Bosire who is the holder of the other Unagi. I will be able to share a review of the Keon once I have it and also showcase it in events.

The much awaited Reps Training in Athens finally came and we all focussed on making sure everything we (Hezron, Alex and I (Cliff)) needed was in place a head of our visit to the Greek embassy for our visas and after a week of waiting for the embassy to process our travel visas, two of us, Hezron and I were lucky to be granted our visas, Alex had a tough luck getting his, the Greek embassy siting new rules by EU blocking foreign students without employment from travelling to any of the schengen countries, that was really tough for him as he’d put in a lot of effort and time in arranging for our travel.

The D-day was finally here, the 1st of March, we were all set for our trip to Athens that early morning. And after 5 hours on board a turkish airliner, we arrived at Istanbul around midday on transit to Atina (Athens) and while here at the airport in Istanbul we met San James and Lawrence from Uganda whom we were coincedentally to take the same flight with them to Athens. Our flight from Istanbul to Athenstook approximately 2hrs or less… And we finally arrived at the Atina International Airport, the chilly breeze, the mountainous view from a far, everything quite different and interesting.
Here again we met a couple of Mozillians waiting for us and it was here that we finally met Michelle Thorne, that was really great for us! We the took the train to ‘Monastiraki’, where our hotel was located, quite far from the airport, say a 45 minutes ride.

On our first day in Athens we didn’t do much, just meeting fellow Mozillians who had already arrived and those who were still arriving. We checked in our hotel room and rested after the  long day of travelling. We then met 4 hours later for our first dinner, with almost all the Reps attending the training having arrived.

On our 2nd day after breakfast, we all gathered at the Monastiraki Square for briefings on the day’s schedule. We went to ‘Technopolis’ where  we would be working from for the rest of training period. Hive Athens were also to host a training session at the same venue the following day and it was such an awesome learning experience seeing how youths were organized and helping in setting up the hackspace making sure everything would workout as they should. I was also amazed by the number of volunteering youths had come to assist Hive Athens in planning for the event.

We spent a better part of the 2nd day at the Technopolis mainly farmiliarising with the venue for most the activities we’d engage in. Meeting fellow Reps whom we’d not met since their arrival as some of us arrived a bit late the previous night from their various countries. We also had a chance to visit the main whole where we’d have the Reps training sessions hosted, such a beautiful venue with a lot of history behind it, dating back to the 1920s, maybe even beyond that!

The Hive Athens hackathon event was quite a remarkable one. One thing that really amazed me was the level of organization shown by the organizers. I got a chance of speeking to one of the volunteer planners for event and he told me that the key to having such a big number of volunteers willing to help in hosting such events is to first let them own the event, doing it out of the usual and making it less formal and ensuring it’s full of fun. And true to this, the event commenced with some sort of a randomn volley ball, where everyone played from anywhere so long as the ball didn’t touch the ground and people would really cheer if someone bent over backwards just to save the ball from touching the ground. This was really fun if you ask me. I remember at times I’d be carried away when the game became more interesting and I’d find myself watching as the youths played from my camera and you’d think that I was taking a lot of photos, well that’s how fun it was. That was really an awesome ice breaker for a hackathon like this, a great way kickstart!

I also noticed how smoothly the whole event was run. Want to know why? Well, it’s pretty simple. Every table had something different to teach or let me make it sound more webmaker like, each table had a different hactivity and well equiped with enough facilitators who were there to ensure everyone read from the same page and that no one was left behind in the learning process. Having enough facilitators was key to this event.

That following week was the most important bit for the Reps training, the Hive event was a good eye opener on how to hold a successfull webmaker event. The training session kicked off with us identifying the common problems we experience when we host local events in our various countries and wrote them on sticky notepads. We later on grouped similar problems and it was amazing how we all experienced similar problems while hosting events but maybe just on different levels. After all these we all gathered to discuss the possible solutions to some of the problems we do face while hosting events. Quite an interesting session hosted by Gardner and Michelle Thorne.

Also worth remembering was practical Reps event we hosted at the British Council. The main aim for this was to put into action all that we’d learnt in the past few days. This seemed like a big challenge for us, teachings kids and teenagers from a totally different culture. The whole session was fucussed on the popcorn maker. And contrary to fears of having a hard time with the teenegers, we all enjoyed teaching the kids how to remix videos using the popcorn maker tool. This was practically the last important session we had in Athens.