Priyanka's Scrapbook

Last weekend I had a blast in Bhubaneshwar. Over two days, I was there at two different colleges for two Maker parties. Saturday (23rd August 2014), we were at the Center of IT & Management Education (CIME) where we were asked to address a crowd of 100 participants whom we were supposed to teach webmaking. Trust me, very rarely do we get such crowd in events where we get the opportunity to be less of a teacher and more of a learner. We taught them Webmaking, true, but in return we learnt a lot from them. Maker Party at Center of IT & Management Education (CIME) On Sunday, things were even more fabulous at Institute of Technical Education & Research(ITER) , Siksha 'O' Anusandhan University college, where we were welcomed by around 400 participants, all filled with energy, enthusiasm and the willingness to learn. Maker Party at Institute of Technical Education & Research(ITER) Our agenda for both days were simple....to have loads and loads of fu...

While going through my twitter time-line this evening, I noticed Michelle Thorne's tweet stating that India leads with most Maker Party action this season. Well, who doubts that! In India, we have a maker parties being organized almost every second day. My facebook wall and twitter timelime is like overloaded with posts, photos and updates from all the Maker Parties happening around me. Maker Party, Pune Well, if you are still not aware of this one, we are having the grand daddy of this maker parties in Pune on the 6th of September 2014. The executive director of Mozilla Foundation, Mark Surman , is going to be personally present for this event. Just like all maker parties, this event is an attempt to map and empower a community of educators and creative people who share a passion to innovate, evolve and change the learning landscape. A few quick updates about this event:  Event date - 6th and 7th September  Event venue - SICSR, Model Colony, Pune Rough agen...

Well, I love the name Larissa came up with for today's event. It is kind of a little long but defines the event best - "Mozilla and WeTech Woman’s Maker Party". We had landed in Delhi on the 22nd of July 2014 and as Larissa defines it, Delhi was indeed a 'steam sauna'. We did spend most of that day going around and visiting a few famous places like the Red Fort, the India Gate, Parliament house etc. In the evening, we did meet the local Mozillians in Delhi. Well, it was an informal meeting of all Mozillians, talking all ' sh!t mozillians say ' ;) 23rd morning began with all excitement. It was a small crowd, but a really awesome crowd in that conference room. Right from the introduction session, we could feel the high intellectual capabilities these young ladies were filled with. After a small game of spectrogram, we immediately moved to introduce Mozilla as an organization as well as all the Mozilla projects. To my surprise, most of the participants ...

I am sure many of you have received an email last day whose subject line was "Invitation to MozCamp Beta India". I am not sure if you were surprised (or confused) with the 'Beta' word and its significance in the event name. Personally, I have never been to a MozCamp before but what I understand after my conversations with several former MozCamp attendees (please correct me if I am wrong), it used to be a gathering for all Mozillians of a region (mostly continent level) to be able to interact with each other. People who have been working virtually were given a chance to meet in reality during this. Also,these MozCamps used to focus a lot on cross community interactions and cross-cultural learnings. The structure of MozCamp is getting a bit modified from this year. Starting this year, MozCamp is going to be more like a 'Train the trainer' sort of event. Unlike previous MozCamps, not all active Mozillians will be called down to attend a MozCamp. Only sele...

This was my third GNUnify in a row as a participant....and the second one as an organizer. Being a student of SICSR and a member of PLUG, GNUnify is somehow way more than just another conference....its MY conference. Everything about GNUnify is a bit too special for me. The GNUnify fever gets on all the organizers right from December, but this time, being away from college (because of my job)....I did catch the fever a bit late ;) Right from 7th of Feb, right from a week before the commencement of the event, I went to college almost every evening; to jump into the excitement of GNUnify preparation. Its very difficult to explain others how we get this passion for the so called EXTRA work after office, but we who live it...just LOVE it! GNUnify is of-course way more to me than just the Mozilla Dev rooms. This year, the Mozilla Dev rooms were a tough job though...due to the lack of budget. The last MozCafe meeting that we had before GNUnify was a tricky one. Planning an event like G...

Public speaking and Evangelism is now getting a hang on me. I am loving the travelling, the interactions and the feeling of being able to enlighten someone with the little knowledge in my mind's bank. This time it was Bhubaneshwar that I got a chance of visiting. A student of the CET college, Bhubaneshwar, had contacted Kaustav (a Mozilla Rep) for hosting a Mozilla event in their college. When Kaustav shared the idea of hosting an event in Bhubaneshwar, the offer was too tempting for me to refuse. Bhubaneshwar is a small city in Orissa where there are quite a few renowned colleges. These colleges hosts some of the tetchiest minds of India. The city never had much exposure to Open Source in general. It was a platinum opportunity (golden is surely an understatement here) for us to introduce the Mozilla world to these techy minds. 21st and 22nd of December were chosen as the dates of the event. The Webmaker table-cloth....shot best Pre-event preparations: Kaustav and I we...

When the India trip was being planned, it was Vineel's idea to have an event in Pune as well. This offer could never have been rejected. As the plans started taking shape, 24th of September was the date chosen for a MDN documentation sprint event in Pune. After Bangalore, I met Ali again on the 23rd, in Pune. Whenever it comes to taking an international guest out for food, we need to do some extra thinking on the food place options. Well, when I took my guest out, I thought I would need to make sure about the spice level in my ordered food. I did need to. But, instead of having to request the chef to decrease the spice level, I had to request him to make the food even spicier. Well, when I am the event organizer, being on time is the first requirement! With all my efforts, I did manage to get the event started by 10.30am (though delayed by half an hour, keeping the past event records in mind, I wasn't much disappointed). I began the event with a brief introduction to Mozilla...

When I reached Bangalore, it was 12.30am. When I had boarded the flight, it was 5th of September, but by the time I had landed, it was 6th already. Whenever it comes to some Mozilla event, I don't know from where, some unknown energy seems to hit us all. At this late hour of night, no one seemed to be tired. By the time I did reach my room, it was 2.30am. Our morning started at 6am. We were at the venue by 8.30am. It was at Jaaga (our hangout destination for the next two days) that I met Michelle for the first time. A lady whose enthusiasm, energy and smile seemed to be spreading like a viral among all the Mozillians present for the 'Train the trainer session' of 6th. We began the day with a small ice-breaking session where each Mozillian introduced himself (or herself) and wrote a small note about what he (or she) expected to take back after these two days event. Well, when it comes to writing, I somehow get a bit too much charged up which ended up making my note the len...

The first time we were having lunch together, Aman had enquired, out of shear curiosity, if it was possible to have a Mozilla event in his college? The next time we had lunch together, it was in his college...during the lunch break of the first Mozilla event at SMT.KASHIBAI NAVALE COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING (SKNCOE), Pune. Thats how events are planned here....online, through chats and whatApp messages. On the last day of the month of August, the Pune Mozillians had gathered at SKNCOE's IT department to address the third year students, introducing them to Open Source, to Mozilla and finally to Webmaker. These days, whenever I go down to different colleges as a speaker, I kind of get surprised (rather should say SHOCKED) by the amount of hospitality I receive from the organizers. The event began with Aman's (the event coordinator from SKNCOE) opening speech and felicitation of the Mozillians. Well, the red roses did immediately light up my day ;) The morning session mainly ...

The Mozilla India Work-week was held on the 29th and 30th of June 2013 but the planning and preparations had begun way back. This was the first big (from my perspective) Mozilla event where I played the role of being a co-host (rather played some signification role) in the entire execution of the event. From planning the event, creating the event on the reps portal, planning the budget, sending down innumerable (mostly erroneous) mails...it was a learning at each step. Well, here I think I shouldn't forget to thank Soumya Deb for this opportunity as well as the awesome mentoring at each step. 28th June, Soumya da and I did reach the hotel before the rest of the reps to check the arrangements and be present to receive the rest of the participants. The best welcome that Mumbai could have given us was with its rains and it did it a bit too perfectly. Surprisingly, that was the only afternoon we got in Mumbai to actually go out and feel the drops. By the evening, our participants ...