localization

I represented Mozilla India in “Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013” held in Pune between 12-13 January 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Summit_India

Before updating about the Wikipedia Summit, I would love to share about an awesome event which was organized in just 30 minutes of short notice. Since there is no direct flight from Kolkata to Pune, I decided to take flight for Mumbai and then traveled from Mumbai to Pune by train. I took halt at Mumbai for few hours. I called one of my friend at IIT Mumbai and asked him to meet. I reached IIT Mumbai at 10:00 PM and met him. He asked me the reason to visit Mumbai. I told him about the purpose of attending Wiki Summit Pune. He then immediately said, me and my friends are very curious to know about various initiatives of Mozilla foundation and how to start contribution. He said to me that, my friends may even come now (at 10:30 pm), he immediately called his 7-8 friends at IIT Mumbai and our meeting fixed at 11 pm. I named this meeting as MozCafe IITB -:)

Summary of MOZILLA CARNIVAL 2012
Pune, India
September 15

Background:
To celebrate the success of all the Summer Code Party events in India, Mozilla Carnival was hosted as one big closure event(pan India), the idea was initiated by the community members from Pune. Over the past few months the community members from across the country hosted several code party events, got together, made things, played with the Webmaker projects, and learned a lot. These include MozParty Pune,  BVP Delhi,  IIT Delhi,  Anthiyur,  Erode and many other. Mozilla Carnival was celebrated along with the Software Freedom Day on 15 September at SICSR, Pune.  

Hey all ,

            I am excited to share my experience of my first Mozilla sponsored event held last Sunday (July – 1 – 2012 ). It is also the first ever Mozilla community Meetup in Erode , on the same day we also inaugurated Mozilla Erode Community.

            It was a beautiful Sunday , I expected participant count around 13 but the turn up was not bad there were about 10 participants among which majority are student reps. Program scheduled to kick off by 11 AM due to few late arrival of participants , we are   forced to start the program by 20 min late.

            I started with the Introduction on FOSS and Mozilla , not even I expanded the term FOSS but the participants already started to shootout their questions.After clarifying their doubts and I proceed with my introduction session. Participants kept on asking questions and hence I ended the Introduction session by 12.30. Next we had a break to have a drink to refresh our self.

            Next we , inaugurated and welcomed Mozilla Erode Community with a cut on the cake. We made a little girl ( next generation Web Maker ) to cut the cake and we all had a taste of it.

You can say, one of the reasons why Mozilla has been hugely successful in its marketing, is because of Localization –Making software products available in local languages. Not many of them are good at English. And Localization gives a chance for people to use the software with local flavor and taste.

Sadly though, in a country like India, with many languages, there hasn’t been a very active contribution towards localization of Mozilla’s products.  So, in an attempt to bring in more contributors, Mozilla is organizing a series of L10N sprints across the country in various cities.  One such event happened in Pune last Sunday as a part of GNUnify’12 and Mozilla India Meet up.  Coming weekend, events are scheduled to take place, one in Bangalore (Saturday) and in Chennai (Sunday).

Brainchild behind this is, Rakesh ‘Arky’ Ambati, Mozilla’s Localization Community Manager, who will be visiting the cities and leading the events. Also expected are contributors from various local Linux Users’ Groups. Going by the way things happened at Pune, I can assure you that this is going to be really exciting!  Apart from people who are already into localization, this will be a great opportunity for budding enthusiasts and students who would like to contribute and get involved with Mozilla.