North American Adventure - Part II

The Air Canada flight from New Delhi to Vancouver is about to head to the runway but suddenly the pilot takes charge of the communication system and announces that the fight will take off the next day due to a technical issue. Well, welcome to the blogpost of the ‘North American Adventures – Part II’. Here comes the A sign or Parental Advisory, this post is not like my other blogposts where-in I am specific to the event but it is going to be as long as my airport layovers. Haha kiddin!

Last year, that is May 2018, I had visited the United States or in general, the North American continent for the first time and it also happened to be my first international solo trip. This year’s visit to the North American continent, that is June 2019, was again a solo international trip and therefore I have titled this post as ‘North American Adventure – Part II’.

Some facts about this tour :

- 2 countries

- 9 cities/towns

- 7 Star Alliance flight connections (plus 3 missed connections)

- 15 days

- Visiting friends and Family

- Work week

- 40 kgs of carry on baggage without paying any fines :D

- 42 hours of sleepless airport layovers (So much of #MeTime is dangerous :P)

The prominent travel itinerary :

Leg I > Toronto and Niagara (Canada) : 10^th June to 12^th June 2019

Leg II > San Francisco, Santa Clara and the Bay Area/Silicone Valley all together (USA) : 12^th June to 16^th June 2019

Leg III > Whistler (Canada) : 17^th June to 23^rd June 2019

Leg I and Leg III were all about exploring the unexplored and thinking strategically whereas Leg II was more about celebrating success and re-defining my existing perception.

The idea behind Leg I was simple : Meeting my best friend

I am very fortunate to have best friends who care and believe in me. My best friend from my primary school Parth is a masters student in Toronto. Myself being a Canadian multiple-entry visa holder, I thought it could be a great opportunity to meet my friend after a year and see how colourful his painting of life is turning to. My visit not just focused on visiting and exploring the disciplined Toronto or living the beautiful and memorable fall of Niagara but it was about capturing the essence of the Canadian life and dreams. I am very much grateful to my friend Parth for his warm hospitality and his help to connect the pieces.

Leg II was not less than a milestone in life : Attending my sister’s convocation

Words will never describe my love for my family and attending my sister’s convocation was not less than a dream for me. My biggest inspiration in life had chosen the American Street on her path to success two years back and I felt completely satisfied to see her getting felicitated on the aspirants stage at the University of Santa Clara. It was also my first time to visit the Golden Gate bridge which is considered as an engineering marvel in the contemporary world.

Leg III : The Open Source Way!

I was invited to attend the Mozilla All Hands at Whistler, Canada by the Open Innovation Team at Mozilla. Mozilla All Hands are a unique and special opportunity for all paid staff and the most impactful volunteers to come together, in person, to share experiences and interact with people they may not normally work with. This was my second Mozilla All Hands and I was very much excited to work with my mates and various project and program managers across Mozilla. Anyone attending the All Hands have to sign a Non-Disclosure agreement and so, most of the things that happen at All Hands stay in All Hands until they are publicly announced by Mozilla in various forums and comms.

As a part of the Mozilla Representatives Council and the Open Innovation team, I had attended few meetings which have the following updates for the lovely Mozilla Representatives and community :

- The Firefox branding styles are evolving

- Firefox account is going to be a centre place of authentication for all the Firefox users

- The Firefox v69 is coming up with a lot of add-ons and services which will focus more on user privacy, security and data

- Firefox Lite has a lot to offer for the Indian users

- I would be working more on the Reps Branding and Reps visibility on various Open Source platforms. More updates to follow soon in the upcoming Reps call.

- I felt that Mozilla Reps or any community member can recommend the individual contributors (coming from a non-tech background) to the Support Mozilla and Localization projects since the volunteer engagement can help us to take our mission forward

Travelling solo is fun but it gets more crazy when other solo travellers join in. I am thankful to a lot many people and I look forward to ink down such adventures in future. Prathamesh Chavan signing off to return again real soon.

Check out the tour pics : https://flic.kr/s/aHsmEE8QL3

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.