Experiences from Mozilla Summit 2013
The Mozilla Summit 2013 ended last week after three days full of fun, productivity and action. Lots of ideas were shared, lots of delicious food eaten and lots of people met each other. The Summit saw a diverse range of activities, ranging from dance parties, karaokes to hackathons and code-sprints. The Summit was organized simultaneously at Brussels, Toronto and Santa Clara. Most of the people from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were invited to the Santa Clara venue. Mozilla had taken over then entire Santa Clara Marriott during the three days — October 4 to 6, 2013. I will not try to write an event report, but share some of the exciting things that I did at the Summit and how it helped to uplift the feelings I had towards Mozilla. This is about the experience.
Know more. Do more. Do better
This is the mantra of Mozilla and the slogan of the Mozilla Summit 2013. This is how Mozilla explains what “open” means. The Summit opened with a speech from Mitchell Baker, recorded at the Brussels Summit. This is how Mozilla strives to keep the internet open and available for everyone out there. With the internet, everyone should be able to know more about the world around them, do more rather than being restricted, and make their lives better by doing something better with the internet. The logo of the Summit 2013 reflected this mantra, and it is something that draws me close to the Mozilla mission. I love the internet to be what it is — a standard of openness and transparency.
Rosana Ardila & Madalina Ana
For those of you who don’t know about who Rosana & Madalina are: They are Community Manager. At Mozilla Support, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Rosana & Madalina on the first day. The second day I made sure I went ahead and greeted them. (You should have seen me smile). But the main attraction was meeting and working together with them for preparing a Open Session regarding SUMO. Finally we did it! It was thrilling talking to them in person and seeing them sitting right next to me .
Meeting cool people
This should have been number 1 on the list. Nothing can beat meeting those people in person whom I have been following on the internet for years and whose writings, techniques and attitudes have inspired me. Here is a list of some of them:
Michelle Luna & Roland Tanglao
Michelle & Roland another of those people whom I wanted to meet at MozSummit. They were one of Firefox for Android and Firefox OS support ninja. It was interesting to have them seat beside me on the first dinner. An extremely helpful and “cool” person! Many thanks to them for helping/mentoring from the day since i joined SUMO!
The experience
I was absolutely thrilled and excited all through the Summit. I remember not being able to sleep the first night I was there. I woke up at 5:30am and went down to the lobby just to be able to talk to the people there. There energy I saw in the community was staggering. Honestly, I hadn’t expected this level of energy in a community of any scale. The same energy resonated from almost everyone present there. It was amazing to be among such energetic people. Commitment was another important attitude I noticed all around at the Summit. People were not just energetic, but seemed to have a deep commitment to the cause they are volunteering for. The same commitment was also reflected among all the paid staff of Mozilla at the Summit. Almost everyone was focused. Each had something in mind that they wanted to take back from the Summit. The hackers took away experiences of nice group-hacking, the localisers participated in localisation, and the FxOS fans had their day as well.
The Sum-it
To sum it all up, I learned more than I helped others learn. I felt the warmth. I felt needed. Most importantly. I felt a part of the common cause, of a shared vision — of an open internet.
