Maker Party Phase 2 (31st January 2015)

Omuganda. A community day that takes place every end month in our country. Our meet up was set up for 2.00PM but we started at 4.00PM because this is a day many of us choose to stay home and relax.

We had 2 visiting ladies from Girls in ICT Rwanda who got to Klab on time and I got a chance to chat with them before the other members arrived. Our community has been talking about starting a WOMOZ community in Rwanda for one year now and having these ladies here was an opportunity I saw to tell them about the program and if they were interested, they could initiate it in the Girls in ICT program. While we were talking about the WOMOZ project, I asked them what events they were planning soon that we can use to recruit Mozillians and Women in ICT and they mentioned the MS. GEEK RWANDA COMPETITION that takes place every year.

Ms. Geek Rwanda is a competition for Rwandan women encouraging them to showcase their knowledge and skills in ICT. It is an opportunity for them to network with others in their field. Girls in ICT Rwanda organize the competition and they were looking for sponsors to partner with them this year.

Other members arrived at 4.00PM and we were ready to teach the web and also talk about ongoing projects. Agenda of the day was

• Translating Firefox OS
• Web maker
• WOMOZ
• Firefox OS Keon - developing progress

Translating Firefox OS:

Arky reached out to me a while back and wanted us to start translating Firefox OS because they will launch it in Africa this year and they want it to have as many languages as possible. I told the members about it and we had a few volunteers interested in the project. I gave them instructions on how to register then linked them to Arky to help them with the next step. We got 2 members (Paul and Blaise) willing to be in charge of the project and they will be the link between Arky and the other translators.

Webmaker:

We had 8 new members and we taught them how to use the web. I introduced them to the tools, demonstrated how to use thimble and xrays then let them do it.

WOMOZ/ MISS GEEK RWANDA:

I briefed the other members about what Maria Claire, Emma and I discussed about Ms. Geek and asked the members what ideas Mozilla could do to support the event and we got answers like; get a booth at the event, pull up banners and give away swag to create awareness and maybe a brief talk by one of the Mozillians to spread the Mozilla word. We will have another discussion after talking to other reps about this.

Firefox OS Keon - developing progress:

Irene’s groups and Svio’s group took us through their working progress and experience of using the phone and they had some difficulty with the app they are developing. I connected them to Hez of Mozilla Kenya to answer any questions they hard regarding developing.

After the things on the agenda, Savio suggested we have a monthly firefox app day where we can invite anyone interested in firefox development to come work on developing the phone and apps. I have to get permission from KLab administration to let us do this so that anyone who wants to can join in and allowed to use the premises. We all agreed our first meet up for this will be on 21^st of February 2015 at 2.00pm.

There being no other business, we I distributed Mozilla swag then the meeting was adjourned. Next meet up is on the 21^st Feb 2015

Maker Party Month Rwanda Phase 1 30th August 2014

Maker Party is Mozilla's global campaign to teach the web. This campaign happens annually from June to October and the Rwanda community was not left behind on this campaign. Mozilla Rwanda has been conducting web maker events among friends and family during the months of June, July and August and we were planning to make these small events big and take them to schools.

We set our calendar from August and September for this event “Maker Party Month, Rwanda” and our target was two schools and one community building event to plan for the school events.

30^th August, 2014. We met at KGL fast food to plan for our events. Meeting was set to start at 12.00p but because of the last Saturday community cleaning day, members came late and we started our meeting at 3.00pm. Everyone came with their laptops and we were ready to start our agenda. Six members attended and 8 came when we were winding up. Agenda of the day was:

• ·         Maker Party Month activities
• ·         Firefox OS Keon project
• ·         Reports on community building and webmaker projects

First item on the agenda was Maker Party month activities. We all know Maker party is a campaign to teach the web. Plan was to visit two schools and teach them how to create something using the web using the web tools and also help them understand how the web works. All the members who attended do know how to use the tools and they split into two groups and will plan how they will conduct the two events. Paula and Irene are the team leaders. The two events were supposed to take place early August but because of unavoidable circumstances due to one of the leaders being away because of seeking medical attention, schools were on break and so we had to reschedule the dates for the school events. Irene was to inquire from her school when they can have us again after schools resume and Paula was to plan with other developers and pick a day when we can have a maker party event in a hub.

   

   

Second thing on the agenda was Firefox OS Keon project. Az received 3 Keons from Mozilla in June and she gave them to the members to take a look at them. We again split the members into three groups and they were to work together on the phone. Dominique, Paula and Irene are the group and will give reports on the working progress. Each of them was given a Keon.

Last thing on the agenda was reports on community building and the webmaking projects. We have 3 new members through Irene and Az. Paula is doing a great job spreading the word and teaching her acquaintances the web. She will plan a webmaker session and will let us know to help facilitate.

There being no other business, the meet up ended at 6pm. The next event will be set after Irene and Paula confirm the dates.

MozRw Webmaker 31st May, 2014

Webmaker is a Mozilla project that helps us create something awesome on the web with tools like Google X-rays, thimble and popcorn maker which allow web makers to create and understand how the web works. Awesome right? Having this knowledge, one can make a web without limits. Webmaker project has built everything so that we see how it works, take it apart and remix it.

Remix? The first time I heard that word in a webmaker meetup (my 1st ever meet up), i got confused. I had to ask our rep then who is now my mentor what he meant. It simply means remake.So webmaker allows us to remake the web which takes us to our goal - encourage millions of people around the world to move beyond using the web to making it.

On 31st May, 2014, Mozilla Rwanda Community joined the Mozilla webmaker community at KLab - Kacyiru Rwanda.It was the community's 1st webmaker sessions so we covered Introduction to webmaking.

   

Everyone had their laptop and excited to learn about making the web. I introduced the team to Webmaking (what it about) webmaker.org then introduced them to the tools
Google X-rays, thimble and popcorn maker. After a brief explanation of each tool, the members present tried to remix several webmaking projects in the website. The experience was exciting for both the members and I. We covered Xray, Thimble and Popcorn. Below are some of the projects the members remixed and published.

      

After a two hour thirty minutes session of fun - teaching and learning the web tools, we all agreed to have another session to move to the next level.

FSA @ KIST - 21st March 2014

Friday 21st March 2014. A day we had planned for months and was in the dark for so long had finally seen the light. We requested this opportunity last year and after several reminders, they finally gave us an opportunity to  talk to the students.

Mozilla Rwanda Community, Represented by Ezres Anitah Az +Az, had a talk with the University of Rwanda - College of Science and Technology students. Given the school's schedule, the turn out was amazing. 50+ students showed up. 

With our our MISSION, the plan was to recruit FSA's in Kigali and set up an FSA club in the institution. 

Az gave her presentation on Mozilla, Mozilla Rwanda and the Firefox Student Ambassador Program and also talked about starting a Firefox Stdent Ambasador Club in the institution.

The presentation included trivia questions about Mozilla and Firefox to see how much the students knew about Mozilla and Firefox. Not many people know about Mozilla or Firefox but many know about Mozilla Firefox browser. They were surprised to find out about Mozilla as an organisation, its products and the Mozilla community. Funny how many think we were recruiting students to work for Mozilla organisation :).

After the presentation, many seemed to be interested and the audience had many questions about the presentation and how they can be part of the community. With the help of their Head of Department, Arthur Joash who is willing to be our contact person (Ambassador) in the institution, we managed to pick a name for the club, and a student rep Adelene. Name picked for the Club is COSTECH FSA Club. Az was tasked to create a club then the students can join online. 

After all this, it was time to share the Mozilla gear we received for the event. Students were excited to recieve something after the talk.

None of this would have happened without the help of Hezron Richard & Alex Wafula from Mozilla Kenya and our contact from the institution Arthur Joash, Univeristy of Rwanda COSTECH. Thank you.

Mozilla Rwanda Meet up 15th March, 2014

It was a rainy afternoon in Kigali. We planned to meet at 2.00pm but ended up meeting at 5.30pm. The turn out was low. We were only 5 Mozillians present namely Irene, Benjamin, Chris, Deus and Az.

Agenda of the Day Event was to plan the upcoming Firefox Student Ambassador event at KIST, which was scheduled for Friday 21^st March 2014.

Az took them through the presentation I had prepared for the event and also assigned tasks to them. What they would do at the event. Benjamin and Irene suggested we plan a future event for their school next semester. 

The meeting ended at 6.30pm.

MozCafe Rwanda 14th December, 2013

3.30PM, December 14th 2013, this was Rwanda's 1st official Mozilla event - MozCafe Rwanda. The swag arrived 4 days to the event and we were ready to begin. The turn out was not as expected but we had enough people (11) to continue with the event.

Agenda of the Day Event was:

• Building Mozilla Rwanda - Progress made so far as a community and plans for the future.
• Mozilla Rwanda Launch - Set a date and updates from Az
• Reports from Members working on different projects 

 Having our computers, tablets, i pads and agenda, we started the meeting.1st thing on the agenda, Building Mozilla Rwanda. +Az Anitah  took the team through the designs she had ie the logo, and promotional items she had designed for the community. We also discussed about Spreading the word and we picked schools as our start up points in this area. After a long discussion, we all agreed to visit two schools early next year to start then we will visit others later in the year. First school we target is KIST, end of January after their exams. Some of the activities we had in mind for spreading the word was to start Mozilla Clubs in Schools.

2nd thing on the Agenda, Mozilla Rwanda Launch. We set a date for the Launch of the community in February, 2013. We also discussed some of the Mozilla Gear we can design as a community for the event. Will share the designs with Mozilla Community soon.

3rd thing in the agenda was reports from members working on difernt projects. +Andrew Kinai  took us through a translation add on he and Fiacre are working on.

The addon is to allow a user to select a word, right click it and click the translate item added to the context menu. A small popup window will appear with translations of the selected word in Kinyarwada or English depending on the word selected.

The addon will utilize an API from kinyarwanda.net accessible here kinyarwanda.net/meta/query.xml.php?q=bite

One member was to do some research on localization, how to start translating Mozilla Firefox to Kinyarwanda, but he was busy did not get time to do it. Another member, Benjamin, took us through what we discussed about localization in our previous meeting so that the new members can know what we were talking about. Az was then given the task to do some research on localization and email the team about it so that the next meeting we can know where to start from.

 

After discussing our agenda, everyone got Mozilla Swag that Mozilla sent us then we had our A.O.B session. So many ideas were put on the table (Building Mozilla Rwanda) to be discussed. Some of them were;

• Have hangout sessions and Meet ups with other communities e.g Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania so that we can get familiar with what communities do.
• Rwanda's 20th Commemoration will be next year. This will be a big thing for the country and we can have an Advert about that and customize it on the Mozilla Firefox home page just like Google . 

After 2 hours of discussion, meeting ended at 5.30pm. That was the last meet up for he year2013. Next meeting is next year, January 2014.

I would like to wish all the Mozillians out there a Merry Christmas and a happy 2014.

9.11.13 2nd Mozilla Rwanda Meet Up

Saturday 9^th November 2013, we had our 2nd meet up at KLab in Kacyiru. It rained all morning and part of the afternoon so not many turned up and we started late. We were twelve members.

The agenda of the meeting was:

• Localization of Mozilla Firefox
• Translation Plug in

We went through the Mozilla website and other community websites to find out what they have done. Talked to Alex Wafula over the phone who referred me to Emmanuel (introduced us on email) of Mozilla Uganda Community because he has done a lot on localization.  Arky also sent us  a tutorial on Locolization which we also went through then we put Gaspard of Mozilla Rwanda in charge on the Localization project. Gaspard was asiigned to get more information from Arky and Emmanuel then will take the community through in the next meet up then we can start localizing Mozilla Firefox.

The 2nd item on the Agenda was the translating plug which Andrew and Fiacre are working on. Andrew explained to the community the mechanism of the plug in, how far they had worked on it and the challenges they went through. The plug in is still ongoing and they will give us more updates in the next meeting.

Meeting was over at 5.30 Pm. Next meeting is on 14th December, 2013 @ 3Pm