A year as a Mozilla Reps Councilman

The nominations for the Reps Council elections Autumn 2017 were opened on 27^th Oct 2017 and I had shared my Councilman’s plan on 1^st November 2017. My plan was focused more on sustainable improvements and accommodating contemporary interests. It was my first time to take a leap from being a Reps Mentor to a member of the Reps Council and my knowledge and perception about the Reps Council was new and ambitious. I am thankful to all the Reps who had supported me and I feel that it is my responsibility to present my tenure report as a member of the Reps Council. I am sharing the highlights since most of the content is protected by the Non-Disclosure Agreement.

The three most-important issues/suggestions/vision with which I had contested the Reps Council Autumn 2017 elections were :

1) Opportunities for new Contributors and Reps

2) Communications

3) Scalability

In Opportunities for new Contributors and Reps, my thought-process was streamlined to the idea of creating a portal which will have information about Mozilla projects, contribution areas and staff POCs and this could be an improved version of whatcanidoformozilla.org . In the All Hands 2018 SF, I had taken up this discussion with the relevant staff and when we were exploring the possibilities, it came to our notice that infrastructure for such portal and maintaining the same could be a challenge and might take a lot of time. Thus, there was no immediate action possible and the status of this idea was indefinite.

Communications was the dearest point in the agenda for me and I had started working on the same from the very initial days in my Reps Council tenure. I started working on improving and restructuring the Reps Monthly Newsletter and getting a team in place. With the help and support of my fellow Councilmen and Councilwomen, I was able to come up with a Reps Monthly Newsletter team applications (https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/reps-monthly-newsletter-applications-are-now-open/27359). I am happy to say that the current Reps Monthly Newsletter team is doing an amazing job and hope to see such great work been continued. Apart from the Reps Monthly Newsletter, one of the most important events for the Reps is the All Hands. It is a platform where new products, policies and plans are presented. I was in my Reps Council onboarding phase when the All Hands 2017 Austin was about to happen and so I thought of not attending the All Hands since I was still a trainee and was unclear about the impact which I can have in the team meetings of the Reps Council as a new member. However, I attended the All Hands 2018 SF and came up with a All Hands report (https://blog.mozilla.org/mozillareps/2018/07/20/reps-council-at-sf-all-hands-2018/).

Thirdly, my agenda for the Reps Council Autumn 2017 elections covered the point of scalability. The idea was to empower the Reps Mentors and help new Reps get on-board. This plan is currently getting worked and I am happy to be supportive in this regards.

As a Council member, I worked on various other projects and initiatives. The Mozilla Reps logo needed an update as per the new branding guidelines and the Reps Council, the Branding team and volunteers worked together to come up with the Reps logo (https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/announcement-mozilla-reps-logo/30210). I was fortunate to serve as as a Council chair from April 2018 to May 2018. I am also a part of the Review Team as a representative from the Reps Council replacing the then Council member Ankit Gadgil (25^th June 2018 till today i.e. 2^nd Oct 2018).

I personally feel that as a elected member, it is my personal responsibility to be accountable for all the actions and commitments for which I was nominated and this blog is one such efforts of being transparent. Because of the NDA agreement, I cannot be more open and elaborate than this. I would again like to thank all the Reps and everyone at the Reps Council for being supportive and motivative.

A quarter mark!

The area of Mixed Reality amazes me every time I try to deep dive in it. And explaining stuff about the same is the best part. The past three months which were February, March and April were very special for me because there were many occasions where I could teach people about A-frame in workshops and talks.

I was invited as a A-frame speaker at the below events :

Virtual Reality @ Inquivesta Science Festival – IISER 

GNUnify 2018

FootPrintsX8

MozVr Devroom @ NewVision

Virtual Reality @ Hackfest, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad

AR and MR at Anibrain School of Media

VR, AR and MR at Bharathi Vidyapeeth Katraj Campus

Virtual Reality @ Indian Institute of Technology (BHU)

These events were very diverse in terms of participation and geographical locations. It was a great fun to deliver the Mixed Reality content in front of a vivid audience. It was not just teaching but personally I got a chance to explore the vast scope which the MR offers in many ways.

The talks and workshops covered the areas like Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, the scope of Mixed Reality, various hardware associated with it and remixing the A-Frame code.

Apart from signing the songs of Reality, I was quite fortunate to travel and explore new places and meeting and understanding the local community members was a cherry on top. It is always a pleasure to connect the dots and build a transparent environment. Mozilla Reps Council is something which I can relate here.

I am very thankful to all the people who hosted me during these last three months. Special thanks to Umesh, Shahidji, Faisal and Sara, Vaibhav, Ranodeep, Shahbaz, Pranshu, Pushpita, Viral, Shina, Aadarsh and the amazing team of volunteers.

Here are some of the pics :)
 

January 2018 so far ...

The first month of a fresh year had to be special. I was pretty excited about January 2018 right from the middle of December 2017 as it had something special to offer.

The major events which I attended or conducted were :

- MakerFest 2018 – Ahmedabad

- Mozilla VR session at Anibrain School of Media Design – Pune

MakerFest 2018 – Ahmedabad

 

Attending MakerFest has always been an exciting experience. I was not able to attend MakerFest 2017 because of some personal reasons but I was totally determinant about MakerFest 2018. New venue, new audience, new function areas and a team of new Mozillians (I had not met these folks earlier) had raised my spirits. With high ambitions, we started off with the Mozilla presence at MakerFest 2018. We spoke about many different things at the Mozilla booth; some of which created a buzz in the entire arena. Firefox Quantum, Mozilla VR, Privacy and Security, Rust, Web extensions, Locations and what not. The confidence of the Mozillians and the enthusiasm of the audience was just perfect. I enjoyed the MakerFest 2018 and the expectations are getting higher and higher for the future variants.

Mozilla VR session at Anibrain School of Media Design – Pune

 

Setting foot outside your house on a typical Saturday morning could be boring at times but this was not the case on 20^th January. Reason being, the much curious and super awesome participants at the Mozilla VR workshop at the Anibrain School of Media Design – Pune. Right from exploring the A-frame application source code to building a VR application using A-frame were the scenes at the venue. It was not just the students who were eager to learn some cool VR stuff but also the in-house professors and trainers of the school. An active content and a positive audience is something which makes a session perfect and this kind of mixture was seen at the venue. It was a wonderful experience being the event speaker and I would really appreciate the facilitation by Pratiksha and Srushti at the event. I am very thankful to the Faculty of Anibrain School of Media Design for inviting us as the event speakers and for presenting a vibrant participation and warm hospitality.