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The day of leaders: Mozilla Nepal Anniversary

A good leader is the one who inspire other to become better leader than just followers. I am the witness of this development here, I am connecting with Mozilla Nepal Community from starting on different way. I got invitation email from Avash for Anniversary, and immediately i thought i will not miss this time.

I couldn’t meet the team before the day, so i was out of any idea of arrangement and planning. I reached there lately, everyone were busy with their task, it looked like different team working for different things. It took while to understand the complete situation, i felt awkward for being late.

When the environment was like that, how can i stay behind. I planned to make the firefox OS App for Nepflights.com. It had been long time not doing development work, but i started to make it. I built the very basic version for my app : https://github.com/prakashneupane/Nepflights

It’s not just about what we built on that day. It’s about where we are today after 2 years and who are we now. Every Achievement is the step to move forward, i hope next year there will lot to do and lot to share…..

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Learn a lots : Mozilla South Asia-Meetup

Being new is your weakness and sometime strength, Weakness don’t have an experience and strength do have chance of justifications. With this credence Mozilla Nepal gained an energy and ready for take responsibility to host Mozilla South Asia – Meet up in Kathmandu for first time from its establishing. Either we were moving with time (schedule) or time was moving with us, we managed everything on time.  I was late than others (but in contact and coordination), Avash and other guys were managing everything, I joined there after everyone reached in venue (except Gen), met Soumya and Vineel at first, and later meet everyone in lobby.  We went to Annapurna for ice beak with coffee, got there MAK (good in Localization) and Danishka (no need to explain), …. and followed by nepali food with nepali culture dance.  I saw one common thing in this South Asia Region; we lacked ample participation of female, thanks to Priyanka and Huda who balanced nature.

Second day was kick off, introduced each other with answer of simple 3 questions who I am?, What I do in Mozilla and What is my planning for 2013 and also had done SWOT analysis of community. At a same time open Data day was also happening in jawalakhel, and being the one of the organizers of event, I leaved hotel and went to program venue with Bansaj(other were in hotel). We arranged banners and other stuff there, and gathered participants for Mozilla Public Program. I remembered many of them were asking for T-shirts and badges and I told they would get if they stay on program. After the arrival of Jumbo team of Mozilla, we started from the community introduction without delaying, the development team demonstrated Firefox OS,   and later other mozillians talked about other projects of Mozilla like Web maker, Pop corn, NeMo, Localization.  At last, tried for some sort of Neplai FOSS community’s interaction with Mozilla; and back to hotel.

Third day, after breakfast, we started our discussion from identifying what is not working in our communities; It was great because of the instant response and solution from other communities. That discussion had expanded the way to move over the problem. And finally, we made taskforce and made roadmap for 6-12 months.  I belong to PR Task force and Marketing Task Force, I have some goals to obtain in my coming days.

The whole things were out of expectation, I thought the participants would be senior (old generations, where I have to heard their babbling) but no one was like that. But the functional fashion of them are matured than usual youngers one. Yes the event has over, but the people, words, actions-reactions  are revolving in my mind….. missing those days and faces….

mozillaasia

 

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What happened in Open Data Day in Nepal

World was celebrating International Open Data Day Hackathon in more than 100 cities. In Nepal, for the first time, Young Innovations, OpenDRI/WorldBank and Mozilla together with co-organizers like Freedom Forum, NGO Federation of Nepal, aidInfo, Wikimedia Nepal, Institute of Engineering, Kathmandu University, OSAC, FOSS Nepal, NEC and other supporters celebrated Open Data Day on February 23, 2013 (Saturday).  More than 400 participants were visited event. The event was full of activities ranging from hackathon( where hackers sat for 5 hours and cook some apps) to open stalls (where people loved to hang out with what stalls showed them). The interesting thing was the excited crowed was looking for Mozillians (who had travelled Kathmandu from different cities for event).

What happened in Open Data Day in Nepal:

Presentation

Program was started with the presentation on what is Open Data and Open Data Day, Why Open Data, why the world is moving toward the open data and how it makes sense for Nepalese. Open DRI presented about the Open Street Map and explore how much works has been done and where this movement is forwarding.    Wikimedia Nepal gave presentation on Wikipedia and other presentations were done by Mozilla.

Open Data Hackathon

The whole day, hackers were drowning in the spot coding sprint. This means developers, designers, statisticians, analysts and data geeks were sitting  together and used the data that is there in public domain to create applications and products that gives more meaning to these data. After uninterrupted hours of hacking, they finally presented the prototype of their developed application to judge. “Petroleum Product” visualizing the data of Nepal Oil Corporation and comparing it with the Indian Oil Corporation, won the first prize, and they got Rs. 10K. “Obudget” and “Open Data Social” both won the Runnerup and got 5K price each.

Mapathon

The World Bank’s Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI) conducted Mapathon wherein the participants collected field data, edit and digitize satellite imagery to create an open and free online map of the Kathmandu Valley using open street map. It started in 9:45 with 53 mappers and the team of mentors from NEC and KU, OpenDRI. All the participants were taught about the tools that they would be using to edit building footprints. Interesting that day, Nepal was ranked with in top 10 for OSM edits in the world with 53 mappers and 51,888 nodes.

WikiEditathon

Wikimedia Nepal had started with the PowerPoint presentation and later done some wiki editathon. Wikimedia team had also a stall for interacting with visitors came there.

Mozilla South Asia Meetup-Public Event

This event was very different and very anticipation not because of participation of Mozilla in Open Data Day, but due to reason of participation of 17 community leaders from communities of South Asian regions. The program was started with the introduction of Mozilla Nepal followed by demonstration of  Firefox OS(B2G) in simulator.  People share about the localization and progress have done by nepali community as well. Guys from other community also presented other products like webmakers, x-ray goggles, pop-corn makers and other. They shared how other people beyond the technical knowledge can contribute in Mozilla. Later on crowd were very excited to see and feel the Firefox mobile handsets and interact with Mozilla community members.

Open Data Stalls

There were around 10 different stalls to showcase activities and initiatives related to Open Data Initiatives in Nepal from civil society, academia, tech-community, etc.

The open data is the part of open movement of Nepal like open Source, open access. This is program will be the great step toward the embellishment of open transparent Nepal and civil participating environment in National issues and agenda .

mappersinroom opendataday hackers in room

participantsinprogram presentingmozilla

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Invitation for Mozilla Public Event, Hackathon, Mapathon, Editathon and Open Stall in Open Data Day

Tomorrow is the day where people in more than 100 cities will be gather to share knowledge, create application and explore possibilities in open data. In Nepal it will be the part of open movement.

YoungInnovations, OpenDRI/WorldBank and Mozilla together with Freedom Forum, NGO Federation of Nepal, aidInfo, Wikimedia Nepal, Institute of Engineering, Kathmandu University, OSAC, FOSS Nepal and other supporters are celebrating Open Data Day on February 23, 2013 (Saturday).

We are conducting Hackathon in open data, mapathon, editathon, presentation and Mozilla Public Event, (a part of Mozilla South Asia Inter-Community Meetup where Mozilla Staffs and Community members from different countries will be present in the event).

The activities planned for the day are:
Presentation on Open Data – Series of presentations to make people aware of what open data is and how it makese sense in Nepalese context.

Open Data Hackathon – On the spot coding sprint that will bring in developers, designers, statisticians, analysts and data geeks to sit together and use the data that that is there in public domain to create applications and products that gives more meaning to these data within 6-7 hours.

Mapathon -The World Bank’s Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI) will conduct Mapathon wherein the participants will collect field data, edit and digitize satellite imagery to create an open and free online map of the the Kathmandu Valley using openstreetmap.

Wikithon – Wikimedia Nepal will teach the participants of the event how to edit articles in wikipedia, specially in Nepali script.

Localization sprint – Mozilla will conduct the localization sprint wherein participants will localize Mozilla products such as Firefox, Firefox OS etc.

Open Data Stalls – There will be around 10 different stalls to showcase activities and initiatives related to Open Data Initiatives in Nepal from civil society, academia, tech-community, etc.

Mozilla team from different countries will join the event after lunch (13:00 hrs) and take session on
· Community introduction
· B2G (Firefox OS) apps development
· Mozilla Webmaker
· Localizing Mozilla Products

There will also be an interactive session with the Mozilla community members.
All the activities will be carried out in parallal providing opportunites for visitors to network and collaborate with each other. Details of the program is accessible at: http://wiki.opendataday.org/Kathmandu2013

Details for event:
Venue: Local Development Training Academy, Jawalakhel, Lalitpur.
Date: 23rd February 2013, Saturday
Time: 11:00 hrs onwards

We cordially invite you to be part of this event, learn more on Open Data and share your valuable views. The event is free for anyone to participate and you can join us any time during the event as per your convenience. Please feel free to forward it to your students, colleagues and friends as well.
Thanks for your valuable support and cooperation !Open Data_Banner_20 Feb 2013

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Mozilla South Asia Inter-Community Meet-up 2013

Overview

The first Mozilla South Asia Inter-Community meet-up will take place in Kathmandu, Nepal, on 23-24 February 2013, with the coordination from Mozilla Nepal Regional community. It will bring together community leaders from the South Asia, including paid staff from across the SAARC countries, to meet for 3 days of presentations, breakout sessions and discussions to plan the implementation of the Mozilla South Asia community road map for 2013 and ensure that the regional community is fully aligned with greater engagement efforts across the Mozilla organization.

The aim of the workshop is to enable Mozilla communities in the South Asia region to share and learn from each other’s experience working on the Mozilla Project, improve collaboration in the future, and work on specific tasks. The event will be focused on operations & roadmap planning for each existing local communities of the South Asia.

South Asia is a unique region with diverse cultures and with a great community presence. The three day meet will help nurture, plan and motivate the regional communities to collaborate, develop and grow.

kathmandu

Agenda

The core goal of this event is to determine the near-future action planning in South Asian region. Hence, this is a leadership meetup. Although, we’ll have the opportunity to flaunt Mozilla presence in a public cross-community FOSS event at Open Data Day, on the afternoon of 23rd Feb.

In this public event for Open Data Day (ODD), with the assistance of Mozilla Nepal community, we can spread awareness about Mozilla project, Firefox Mobile & Desktop, Firefox OS, Webmaker, and how easy it is to get involved in it.

Expect expectations from you. Represent your community, be proactive. Prepare to talk about your focus area, your contribution, new ideas you’d like to get a feedback on, or want to suggest changes on how something has been done in the community.

for more details:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community/South-Asia/Inter-Community-Meetup-2013

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First Mozilla Nepal Meetup

The first ever Mozilla Nepal Community Meetup was held at FOSS Nepal Office on 26th August 2012. It was introductory meetup without agenda or better to say it was first meeting for formalization of Mozilla Nepal. Actually meeting was initiated by Avash Mulmi, Nirmal and some guys. The idea behind the establishment of this community tends to contribution for Nepal.

There was 19 full of zip participants, and lots of time discussed about what we can do. It was introductory meeting but discussed about the localization in Nepal, previous work out in localization and upcoming practice.

Finally, we conclude some points in first meeting.

  • Participation in SFD 2012, we may either do some hackathon or interest growing session.
  • Creating independent mail group
  • From now, any contribution from single person will append with Mozilla Nepal.
  • Web portal

Here are some more details about Mozilla Nepal.

Why?

Instead of individual contribution to the Mozilla Project and Open Source Community, Mozilla Nepal inclines to play role as a Team of Volunteer and FOSS enthusiastic.

Who can join?

Anyone interested can join here with strong dedication no matter how, when and where.

What are benefits?

  • Learning, this will be the platform for learning about new thing happen globally.
  • Creating Eco-System of World IT movement in Nepal.
  • Exposure and Connection, nice platform to work with different new faces from different places.
  • Contribution for the shaping the future of web.
  • Last but not least, this will make thing happens.

How can Contribute?

It is not like that you should technically sound for contributing Mozilla, but here are some area of interest that you can pick up.

  • Helping Users
  • Testing and QA
  • Coding
  • Marketing and Evangelism
  • Localization
  • Add-ons
  • Visual Design
  • Developer Documents
  • Accessibility
  • System Administration
  • User Research
  • Education