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The story of my first Mozilla Festival


I remember rushing through my paper which got over by 4.30pm and I had a cab booked for the airport which was to pick me up by 5pm. Well, that was the level of adrenalin rush I had faced throughout my MozFest.
After a not so uncomfortable journey of about 9.5 hours from Mumbai, I finally landed in London in the morning at around 6.45am (from here on, all the mentioned times are going to be London's local time). Well, after the immigration check and luggage check out, now the challenging job began.

Initially had thought of not sharing this part of the story, but then again, why not! While trying to find the station from where I could get a train to Green park, I kind of got lost at the airport. I went to the wrong station and almost boarded a wrong train! Phew! A timely realization just saved my day. Finally after finding the RIGHT path, I did manage to check into the hotel.
Didn't get much time to explore my room or the hotel though, had to immediately leave for the venue as I was already running late by an hour.

Day 1 begins: 
It was such a relief to finally meet the rest of the team at the Ravensbourne. The day began with loads of excitement but the schedule didn't look much heavy initially. The first half of the day mostly consisted of a few meetings and strategy building sessions. We also had a super fun T-shirt designing session where we did hack some Webmaker T-shirt did actually wear those hacked stuff on the following Sunday.

My hacked T-Shirt!!!


It was fun dressing the venue up for the big event that morning. Sooo many creative people with their artistic gloves on were doing an awesome job at making the place look super cool.

The SCRUM wall is being prepared!
The actual fun began in the evening with the science fair. It was like awesomeness all around me! There were so many creative stuff all around the place. Some of my very favourite ones were (sorry, should have noted the real names down...these are the names I have given them as per their characteristics):
  • Save the kittens game
  • Painting robot
  • The glowing T-shirt
The robot...completing his painting job!
After an amazing day, it was time for an amazing dinner. The Brazilian Grill it was on our plate that night.

Day 2 begins:
The second day was more of 'making'. We reps were all over the place, no doubt about that, but there were a few places where I was seen a bit too much (well, other than the coffee stalls). In the morning, I was mostly hovering all around the 'Green Screen' to learn the art of making those awesome popcorn videos with live memes. Some of the awesome work of this booth can be found here. 

Another place where I was probably expected to be found a lot and yes I was there, was at the table where "Girls in Technology" teaching kit was being prepared (well, yes I am a feminist and everyone knows that by now :P ). The kit we had built that day can be found here. This is one of my favourite contributions (that I could give) to MozFest.

The amazing Mozilla Reps at the MozFest

Other than these, we had the Reps group photo taken, we (all the reps) did play the Ware-fox (some game similar to the Ware-wolves game that we play a lot).
That night it was Japanese food that was served on our plates for dinner. Post dinner we did even join the Karaoke night party (though for a really small amount of time).

Oh ya...this time I got hold of Mr.Foxy when the camera was around ;)

Day 3 begins:
I knew it was my last day in London and last day at the MozFest...so from the very beginning I was determined to make the most of the day. On this day, I was all over the place. I made badges, I gave an interview for the MozFest documentary, I did paint T-shirt and I also played the recently learned Ware-fox game with a group of kids.
Wow! What a day it was. Even before I realized, the clock had turned and it was time to say good bye to all. Here I shouldn't forget to thank Christos for the swags that I received as the departing gift. I wish I could stay back longer....I wish MozFest was celebrated for a month (I know the Mozilla accountant will kill me at this demand :P ).
I headed back to the airport with a heavy heart. Departing after awesome 3 days is never easy...but like every other great things, this also had come to an end.

  
Thats me at the MozFest!
 
I did return to India. Trust me when I say, I gave the remaining two papers and to my surprise they didn't go that bad :P

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