MozCoffee Dhaka: First community event of 2015

Community meetup is an essential community building tool where the members can gather in a place to connect each other, share knowledge and experiences and plan together for the future. Each time you are in a meetup it makes the bond strong between you and the other community members as well as make new bonds with newly interested members who attend the meetup for the first time to meet any Mozillians to know more about the Mozilla products, projects and the community. Is is very inspiring to a newly recruited contributor to see in reality how a Mozillian is a essential part of the community.

Mozilla Bangladesh  also arranged a community meetup named "MozCoffee Dhaka" on 31 January 2015 at Bishwo Shahitto Kendro. That was the first community event in year 2015. You can find the agenda at the planning pad of the event but mainly we meet to share the experiences of Mozlandia attendees with all the community members and transfer the knowledge to community members about the planes of Mozilla, Mozilla products and Mozilla communities for year 2015. We've invite all the Mozlandia participants from Bangladesh, all the community member from Mozilla Bangladesh and the people who are interested in Mozilla.

We start the event with a recap of previous year activities of Mozilla Bangladesh. As the event owner and host I do the recap with a small video prepared with the event pictures of previous year.  Year 2014 was magnificent year for the community. In 2014 the community grow and become solid with lot of awareness events at every corner of the country, had very successful country wide Firefox OS launch, did splendid developer engagement, significant contributions in Localization, SuMo and Webmaker. I also introduce Hossain Al Ikram to the community as he recently appointed as Mozilla Rep.

Mahay Alam Khan

After that Mahay Alam Khan (MAK) invited to share his experiences of the workweek he participated in December 2014. He share his experiences with the localization team at Portland, discussions about  to unite bn-BD and bn-IN, and how Mozilla moving forward to have a single locale for Bangla. He also discuss about the "Old Guard and New Guard" and the radical participation towards Mozilla.

Nihan Kamal

Then I invite Nihan Kamal to share her experiences, who is the first Mozilla employee from Bangladesh and participated in Mozlandia. As she is new to Mozilla and that was her first event to join any Mozilla event, she express her excitement and share some interesting experiences at Portland. She also talked about current activities and future plans towards Firefox OS in global and local perspective.

Noor talked about future plan of SuMo at Bangaldesh

After that another Mozlandia participant Ashickur Rahman Noor was invite to join us to share his experiences. He share with us his experiences about how he managed to survive three days with a single set of dress as he lost his luggage at the airport. Also he talked about meeting with SuMo team and future plans about SuMo activities in Bangladesh.

It's my time

At the end we ask to participants for their questions or the topic they want to discuss or want to know. We also inform participants about our future plans, the Digital World 2015 participation, as this is the biggest ICT Expo of the country, what we are going to do to increase the coverage and contributions in Mozilla Location Services (MLS), also discussed about SuMo meetup to increase capacities of SuMo contributors in the country.

Group Photo

We are very grateful to the participants and the speakers, as they joined us and made the the event success even in the recent political unrest of the country. Every day we are experiencing blocks and strikes in the roads now, but our Mozillians showed their love affection towards the community once again. More then 70 people joined us at the meetup and around 30% of them are new to Mozilla. Thank you all. Our Mozillian (Delta) Ashfaq deserves an special thank, who worked hard to arrange the event and support me to do the event. Thank you Delta, keep continue your good work towards Mozilla and the community.

More photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mahayalamkhan/sets/72157650159079147/

Boot Camp: Digital Literacy through Webmaker tools for e-Service Delivery

Recently Mozilla and Access to Information (a2i) programme of Government of Bangladesh  arranged an boot camp as the first step to bring the Webmaker tools for the general people of Bangladesh. The goal was to use Webmaker tools for digital literacy for citizens of Bangladesh for batter e-Service Delivery.

The boot camp was 3 days (31 December 2014 - 2 January 2015) long, the participants were from different professions as Teachers, Students, Entrepreneurs, Government officials and NGO officials. There was 30 participants from different locations organizations and institutions. Participants ware grouped according to their profession. They work 9:00AM to 6:00 PM everyday even more to learn the tools, test them, identify their problems at their daily works which they can solve with these tools, they also develop some teaching kits on how to teach these tools to others for each group.

Group photo with boot camp participants

The boot camp was to test the webmaker tools from various perspectives whether the tools are ready to use, are they applicable in daily life tasks, how easy to learn about them and get benefited. The another dimension of the camp was to see how different groups of people from different professions and backgrounds accept the tools to deliver their services in batter ways. The boot camp was support by UNDP, USAID, Mozilla and Dnet. A team of 6 Mozillians from Bangladesh conduct the whole boot camp.

What is a2i?

Access to Information (a2i) Programme is an UNDP and USAID supported project (programme) having its office at the Prime Ministers’ Office. The overall objective of the project is to provide support in building a digital nation through delivering services at the citizen’s doorsteps. The programme aims to improve quality, widen access, and decentralize delivery of public services to ensure responsiveness and transparency.

Boot Camp: Digital Literacy for e-Service Delivery

Day 1:

At inauguration session showing "Web we want"

At the inauguration session the participants given an orientation about the camp. They has been motivated through some motivational videos and discussions. After that Mozillians demonstrate X-Ray Goggles, Thimble, Appmaker to the participants.

Entrepreneurs group working to identify the problems

Then each group of participants work to identify problems in their daily works that they can solve them with technology. Participants worked in groups and list down their ideas and share with all the other groups with a presentation.

Government Officials group doing remix with Thimble

After lunch Mozillians teach the X-Ray Goggles and Thimble to the participants and they do some hands on and remix with these tools. Day one ends with a interesting and funny games called "Trigger-Receiver" where participants learn and get an idea about the triggering and receiving signals system of Appmaker tool through performing songs, plays and making fun.

Triggers and Receivers

Day 2:

Day two starts with a recap of previous day activities. Where some participants demonstrate again how to use X-Ray Goggles and Thimble. After that participants again did a group task to make a paper prototype of an app that solves one of their problem they identify and can make a batter service delivery to their clients.

Paper prototype by a group of participants

They ware given some piece of papers and participants have to draw their systems in the paper as an App.

Teachers are working on their paper prototype

At the beginning Mozillians demonstrate them the Appmaker tools in details, show them some demo apps made with this tool and instruct them how to work to make a paper prototype for their apps. Then participants start to make their apps through Appmaker.

Students are making their app with Appmaker

Mozillians did help so that each groups to come up with at least one app demo. After the session each group present their apps to all the participants. Interestingly each group of participants came up with some nice apps  and some of them were in Bangla.

App by the Students

App by the Entrepreneurs

App by the NGO Officials

App by the Teachers

App by Government Officials

After lunch participants again worked in groups to design workshop for their specific target audiences, they design complete workshop to teach more people about the tools and facilitate more people to use and benefited using the tools.

Workshop designed by NGO Officials

Day 3:

Again day 3 starts with a recap from previous days activities. Some of the participants demonstrate their apps made with Appmaker. Then participants work in groups to make their workshop design by remix Workshop Design Kit at Thimble.

Workshop Design Kit

Each group prepare a Thimble make for their workshop design. Mozillians help each group to make their Thimble with simple HTML. Before lunch participants specially teachers group requested to demonstrate them the Popcorn tool, which will help them to make interactive teaching materials for their classes. Mozillians demonstrate them the Popcorn tool and show them some makes made by Popcorn. After lunch each group of participants were present what they learn, design and make in those three days to all the participants and the guests.

Government Officials presenting their app

They gave their honest feedback about the tools and the boot camp. At the end of the event participants were given certificates for their participation at the boor camp. Event end with a group photo session.

What next?

Mozillians  conducting Boot Camp

To connect all the participants of boot camp and the facilitators initiated a Facebook group page where participants can ask any help regarding the tools as well share their makes with all the participants. Also there was a planning session with Mozillians and a2i afterward to finalize the teaching kits and curriculum for upcoming trainings. a2i planned to do a pilot training on January 23, 2015 in the Digital Innovation Fair at Dinajpur. We eagerly waiting to see a successful training at Dinajpur and hope to do a lot more with Webmaker in year 2015. Stay tuned!

More photos of the event: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bellayet/sets/72157649719568438/