Friday 8 August 2014

MozRide to a Village – Maker Party @ Gangadevipally



As you all know, I and Hitesh have started a campaign named MozRide as part of Mozilla Web Maker Project to host Maker Parties in the city of Warangal and raise awareness on Open source, Open Web, Net Neutrality, Mozilla and to teach the web.

MozRide got good response and many of our friends wanted to get involved in this campaign. Ajay – Mozilla Web Maker Super Mentor, M Santhosh, Bharath, Sudheer, Manoj, Samudrala Santhosh, Sai, Vineeth, Abdul Ghani and Vamshi have joined me and Hitesh for the MozRide to a Village and we all together have hosted Maker Party @ Gangadevipally.



It was a two day event; first day was train the trainer’s program - to all the newbie’s who joined the campaign. I, Ajay and Hitesh have trained the new people who joined the program upon Importance of Open Source and the Open Web, Mission of Mozilla and Web Maker Project, different ways to contribute to Mozilla, How to host Maker Parties, Web Maker tools, event guides to plan and host Maker Parties themselves. First day was very productive. All the newbie’s who joined us Day 1 are now in a stage to host Maker Parties on their own. All are satisfied with the training.


Second day was the Maker Party. We all were set and were very excited to host the event. Gram Sarpanch (A head of the village) has inaugurated the program. Many people of the village have joined us in the event. Children, farmers, Bank Officials, teachers, House wives were all the part of Maker Party. 



 First I have given a brief Introduction to all the people about who we are, what we do as part of Mozilla and how we do. Then people moved to different stalls organized, in the first half an hour, everybody have given awareness on Open Source, Internet, Open Web, Net Neutrality and Mozilla to the people and the rest of the event was showing them live about what Internet is, how to use the web using Firefox Browser, how webpage is loaded in to the browser, how it is built with html and the basic html tags. 



The village which we have chosen for MozRide has many credits. It is one of the best villages in India and it has been awarded as the Model Village.  There is 90% of literacy, no alcohol consumption, 100% children going schools, no child labor, purified drinking water at a very low price etc.
There was no Internet connectivity in the village, we used paper prototypes – we made a prototype to describe about internet, we used charts to describe about html tags. The second day of the event was also a great success.

Finally we took feedback from the villagers and gave a momento on behalf of Mozilla Warangal. People felt so happy for sharing the knowledge with them.



Make which we have created: https://merajimran.makes.org/popcorn/2791

Reps Portal Link: https://reps.mozilla.org/e/maker-party-gangadevipally/

Flickr Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/82525714@N05/sets/72157646278828382/


Wednesday 6 August 2014

Maker Party @ Navodaya Medical Store


Yeah, you heard it right. Maker Parties can be hosted anywhere to teach the awesomeness of the web. Me and Hitesh started a campaign called MozRide where we host Maker Parties all over Warangal City to teach the web.


As part of MozRide campaign, we have hosted a Maker Party @ Navodaya Medical Store for which we are regular customers. They have opened a new branch for their medical store, so Me and Hitesh thought why not we host a Maker Party and teach them how to make a web page for their store?

For this, Me and Hitesh first planned how to start and from where to start. We first made a basic plan to initiate the event by telling them about the uses of an Internet and the web page for their store, also we jotted down some points how their online presence will grow their business. Finally we arrived to the Medical store to host a Maker Party.

First, I spoke to the owner of the store, I Introduced myself as a Mozilla Rep, I told them what I do as part of Web Maker project and also I explained the purpose of visit to their store. Then I have explained her uses of Internet and a Web Page for their store and I told her the Mission of Web Maker Project that our mission is not just people consume the web but also create the web. She was so excited to learn and make a web page for their store. 

Hitesh was taking the pictures mean while. I gave the teaching part to Hitesh as I was happy to see one old grandfather coming in to their store to purchase medicines. I grabbed that opportunity. I introduced myself to him; I told him I want to teach you about Computer, Internet and the Web. He was so happy; he spent around 30 minutes with me.    

When I started telling him about computer, he listened carefully and he was enjoying learning.  He told me that there was not this much of technology when he was studying. He used Punched Cards and learn about computer in his days and now he is happy to see the technology.

I also taught him about the Internet and the web, also how Mozilla is striving to make the web open for all. After I completed my teaching, he was giving me examples for which I taught him. I felt so happy with the way he understood my teaching. He also told me that he had no knowledge of internet till date. He was very happy to learn about the web at an age of 61 years. This sentence made me proud of being a Mozillian.

As he was very new to the world of Internet, I do not want him to get confused. I just opened Firefox and shown him how the information is rendered in browser in the form of html. I taught him basic tags of html in a notepad and ended the discussion with him.

I then joined Hitesh in teaching the owner of the store about the creation of a webpage for their store. She too felt so happy and thanked us by saying we being their customers helped them to grow their business by teaching and making their online presence. I replied ‘’DOING GOOD IS PART OF OUR CODE”. She also told his son is also there, you can also make him get involved in Mozilla. This is how we also got a chance to recruit new contributor.


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