MozFest2016

MozFest ran between the 29th and 30th of October, with a training day on the 27th for Mozilla Women Leaders. On the 28th we kicked off with all the Regional Coordinators and Club Captains meeting and joined the science fair straight away.

I travelled down from Cape Town to London a week before to spent time with family and on Wednesday the 26th October, I headed straight to the Hilton London Tower Bridge hotel, where overall I had a lovely stay.

The next day, we woke up early to get to the venue, Newspeak London: excited to meet a group of 30+ leaders within Mozilla’s networks for women and web training. The room was ripe with excitement and apprehension, as women spoke happily about their journey down, and their planned workshops and sessions. We had great conversations that were energetic, constructive, and thought provoking about how to change behavior with campaigns that win hearts and minds. We spent some time with the advocacy team learning how to create stories that have a powerful narrative as a tool for campaigns. By the time it had finished, I was really excited and looking forward to an inspiring weekend.

On Friday, I was so excited that I woke up as soon as my alarm went off. After eating a delicious breakfast at the Jamie Oliver restaurant next to the hotel, we caught the tube from London Bridge to North Greenwich, and then jumped right into MozFest. I completely immersed myself in my favorite spaces informed by one learning objective, and curiosity in my mind “How do we ensure that those that are already disconnected don’t all farther behind as technology and internet advance”? I must admit I really had to roam around the venue of seven floors to scout for these specific interests of mine.   

Mozfest is really a diverse, highly interactive event with something for everyone, young and old. The weekend is a fully packed program with enlightening science and tech, arts, journalism, open leadership and more exhibitions. Visitors could enjoy a range of experiments, demonstrations, hands-on interactive experiences, talks and chaos. 

What made it easier for a person like me, who gets frightened by big crowds, is how the sessions were organized into spaces.  Physical and thematic learning hubs were based around a broad topic, like science, art, or journalism. Ongoing, interactive experiences weave between spaces, connecting thematic threads and allowing participants to explore topics in a self-directed way.  There is too much to see with very little time so one has to be very strategic on what they want to achieve.

The festival kicked off Friday evening with science fair that included lots of presentations on inspiring ideas. Visitors could explore, discover and relish in some of the fascinating ideas presented by a range of exhibitors trying to explain their project in a very short space of time. There was a Mozilla laser powered rocket, a chance to try out some of the latest science-based products from previous Mozfest participants like Nature, in Code - learning JavaScript to reason about our world in code.

Saturday and Sunday were filled with participant-led sessions that generally ran between one and three hours. These were either interactive labs where participants could learn something new or share their knowledge; small group breakout discussions where bright minds debate the most pressing issues facing the Internet today; or design sprints dedicated to hands-on making, hacking and producing a ‘thing’.

Here’s a list of my highlights from Mozfest:

Open Leadership Camp - Planning workshop by Philipp Schmidt of MIT Media Lab. Phillip and his team got together a team of Executives to talk about the Open Leadership Camp syllabus, discuss different formats for bringing the course online, and explore other strategies to propagate and reach more people. The first open leadership camp is planned for 2017. This is a new type of executive (un)education developed by the MIT Media Lab and Mozilla. It will help senior leaders in the public sector and civil societies bring open strategies and technologies into their organizations. All of the curriculum will be openly available and (hopefully) useful for many other groups as well.  Lots of surprising outcomes came from the workshop for me, just how the participants viewed Open Leadership and what Sergio Branco is doing in Brazil was amazing take away for me. I believe this Camp is going to transform lots of Executives lives. I could feel it. In a short space of time in this workshop I had learned that I have to rewire my brain to be an Open entity as a leader.

Hillary Kolos and Rudy Blanco were really informational when sharing their three years story of how the Learning Portfolio Project at DreamYard preparatory school has been using free and open tools to help young people tell their own learning stories. Learning portfolios are online, multimedia collections of young people’s work, including finished pieces, reflections on and documentation of process, research and examples of other’s work that inspires them. What was exciting was to hear about how this process was very organically facilitated to accommodate teachers and students needs and learning abilities.

Hildah Nyakwaka from Jamlab was amazing in her session devoted to teaching how to create a safe space for women online. She started a workshop with a spectrogram recognizing few societal issues affecting women. This session was amazing because women from all over the globe could respond based on issues according to their geographical context however the fundamentals remained the same when we had to decide what safe spaces for women online means.

Another popular highlight of the MozFest was meeting Diana Nucera. Her exclusive look at the Detroit Community Technology Project is really a great documentation of how to involve community if you are really passionate about digital divide as I am. In this session participants got a 100+ page Handbook that would help you to create a short workshop using e-community technology and popular education methods. This session was for me. My passion for teaching community technologies was really captured here. Their mission is to use and develop technology rooted in community needs that strengthens human connections to each other and the planet. The

Quote from the Handbook “We produced this handbook because we recognized that having a particular skill doesn’t necessarily mean you are equipped to teach it to others.

It was a pleasure to spend time and connect with other regional coordinators and Mozilla Club captains, a group of leaders I admire and look up to. Julia Vallera from Mozilla Clubs ran a session that was amazing. This session was special to me as participants were divided into two groups. Mozilla Clubs members got to share their learning and success stories with individuals new to Mozilla Clubs. For those who didn’t know anything about clubs they got introduced to club structure, curriculum, community, partnerships, outcomes and goals. They participated in a hands-on activity exploring club model in small groups. By the end of the session participants understood basic understanding of the Mozilla Clubs model, its relationship to the larger Mozilla mission and how they and/or their communities can get involved.

Saturday night the 29th October 2016, around 5:30pm we met at the entrance of Ravenswood College for an event I signed up for earlier that month which was to be initiated into the monks order.  It was also the only opening of the Monks of Balance Headquarters that has never taken place. This date marks the 47th anniversary of the creation of the internet, the 1023nd anniversary by the occupation of Syria by the Byzantines as well as National Cat Day. For the first time in my life I attended a crazy dinner like that, were I had to catch and destroyed eggs, my thumbs were trained, my software updated and the penance delivered as I walk through the Dark Web. In the end I had a lovely dinner as it was confounded by several unusual, sensory surprises, such as a monks band and dancers. It was exhilarating fun of theater at the same time.

The Festival finished on a high on Sunday evening with a party where some exhibitors were showcasing and celebrating what they built together with the community. This has been an exceptional experience for me as it was my first time at the Festival and many of the activities really captured the imagination of adults and children alike.

Mark Surman said: “By far this has been the best Mozfest Festival ever. It’s also been one of the most successful. We’re now looking forward to the 2017 Mozfest.” Overall I had the best time at MozFest.

As I left the Festival I knew that Africa has instilled a strong “Ubuntu” values and principle that I carry in heart. I never realized how I look at things and apply ubuntu values as my lenses of how the world is structured and operate. As Africans the success of individual “Ubuntu is a philosophy that considers the success of the group above that of the individual". Mozfest had great projects and activities that in my view was very individualistic and appeared to me as if I attended a Tech Marketing Festival of people showcasing how great they are. . I hope in future  projects will be designed to showcase I did this with you in mind not I developed this because I am excellent at what I do. I am aware that its hardest to convert people.

By Baratang Miya