Experience at Mozilla Summit 2013

It was May 21^st Tuesday 2013, around 4:30AM IST.  I was on my bed struggling hard to sleep. I finally gave up and switched on my system to check my mails or just go online. A mail from Mozilla got rid of any lingering sleep. I was wide awake, yet strangely disoriented. [2013 Mozilla Summit!] It’s official, you’re invited!! am I dreaming! Later when I read everything, I was assured that it’s real and not spam 😉

I was pretty excited about the invite and was very happy to be a part of the summit.

Mozilla Summit 2013

The Mozilla Summit 2013, a 3 day event where most of the Mozillians meet, celebrate the success of Mozilla and make plans for the future advancements in web and technology

This was the first Mozilla-wide Summit in three years and we couldn’t be more excited! This year, the Summit was held in three different cities:

1. Brussels, BE
2. Santa Clara, CA, USA
3. Toronto, ON, Canada

The Summit was organized simultaneously at all 3 places on October 3, 4 and 5^th respectively

My time there

I was invited to attend Summit at Santa Clara, California. I was so excited to attend the Summit and meet Mozillians all over the world.

Finally on 3^rd October, I was well packed and ready to fly and meet the family of Mozilla, the Mozillians.  It was my first flight journey, very excited and a bit scared as well ;), an enjoyable experience. When I landed at San Francisco, there was a huge team welcoming us with a big smile. We introduced ourselves to the team and we were taken to the hotel Santa Clara Marriott (the hub for most of the events in Santa Clara). We were shown to our rooms, where we rested and got refreshed

Finally the most awaited Mozilla Summit started with a warm welcome by Tristan, followed with a talk by Mitchell Baker about “What makes Mozilla Mozilla!” and series of other talks on strengths of Mozilla, how it is going to help the world, which inturn builds a healthy Mozillian.

Mozilla describes internet as OPEN with following mantra:

Know more, Do more, Do better!!

Know more about the world and emerging technology with internet. Do more without any kind of restrictions. Do better innovations to help the world.

World Fair was an event where Mozillians from different countries participated in the fair to demonstrate their work, different ideas and products created by the communities all over the world.

Next day started with the “Mozillian Pilates” by Pascal Finette  which was refreshing after a long journey from Bangalore, India to Santa Clara, California. Later, there was a talk by Tristan followed by similar talks. The Innovation fair which was the next event, was a platform where Mozillians could display their inventions they are working on. The focus of each Mozillian was same as everybody wanted to change the world with technology.

This was followed by different open sessions and the day was concluded with a Photo session of all Mozillians, one more memorable moment of the Summit.

Pillars of Mozilla:

1. Build Products: Mozilla aim to build the WEB and want through great products, services and programs. As we do, make sure to delight and empower people across the internet and to show what is special about the web.
2. Empower Communities: Communities that: lead, build and promote Mozilla’s work; and inspire and enable the Mozilla spirit in others.
3. Teach and Learn: As a way to help people understand what “openness” feels like, how the web works and given them the knowledge they need to create, shape and control their own online lives.
4. Shape Environments: We want to shape environments to embody and spread Mozilla’s vision and values. In particular, we aim to shape the consumer product environment towards openness, to shape the overall web platform to ensure that continues to embody the values in the Mozilla Manifesto, and to shape people’s mindset to understand and appreciate these values.

Totally Summit was extremely awesome to be able to meet so many Mozillians and the energy levels were very high. I lespecially liked the innovation part which was simply awesome and I was stunned with different innovations all together.If you ask me what I learnt, I would just say “Summit turned me from an introvert to an extrovert”. Mozillians taught me how to interact, and pitch into conversations of complete strangers and have a broader thinking level.

The Summit was an opportunity to celebrate the success and build the future with a fellow Mozillian, in simple words to understand who we are and what we have accomplished.  It was an amazing chance for me to connect,hack, and build a healthy relationship with people and community.

Five things I learned at Summit would be,

1. Turning Ideas into action
2. Blending passion with voice and actions
3. Choosing our own adventure
4. Importance of Community and Network
5. Culture

I was at the right place. It’s so important to have a good, trusting relationship with community. Different people have different approaches. And what works for me may not work for others. But the summit had culture with same vision which is to improve the way internet is! The mishmash of research, expertise, responsiveness and approachability, and passion and kindness may be one of the reasons why I loved Summit this much.

Some of the Mozillians whom I met at  Summit 2013,

@bkerensa, @ajoysingha, @rahid, @bacharakis, @playingwithsid, @iamjayakumars, @amodnn, @vineelreddy, @rosanardila, @pfinette, @SujithReddyM, @MadalinaAna, @Sayak_Sarker, @NareshSundar, @midhunsss, @GalaxyK, @rtnpro,  @komal_Ji_gandhi, @kaustavdm, @H34V3NG0D, @neocatalyst, @haseeb_offline, @AjayJogawath, @chowdhury_sayan, @GauthRaj, @MerajImran

Reference: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Summit2013