Summary of Firefox OS App Days Bangalore | 26th January 2013.

A series of Firefox OS App Days took place over the course of approx one week in January 2013 in ~20 locations around the world. Firefox OS App Day Bangalore is one of the App Days as part of this series. The events themselves were organized and coordinated through the Mozilla community. The App Days event is designed to learn, hack and celebrate theFirefox OS, Mozilla's open source operating system for the mobile web.

When:
Saturday, 26th January 2013
Schedule:

 08:30-09:30: Registrations - Breakfast

 09:30-10:00: opening - welcome - National Anthem

 10:00-11:00: introductory presentation for Firefox OS, Marketplace, Technical overview, technical presentations on: Firefox OS Simulator, Developer Tools, Web APIs, Web Apps templates

 11:00-11:30: Q & A

 11:30-13:00: app hackathon

 13:00-14:00: lunch

 14:00-18:00: app hackathon

 18:00-19:00: wrap-up: collect apps for demo

 19:00-20:00: Social event -Dinner.

Where:
The Firefox OS App Days Bangalore took place at the silicon valley of India, Bangalore.
The venue of the event was ThoughtWorks Bangalore.

How:
Technology leaders from Mozilla presented new technology built to extend and support the new Firefox OS platform. This App Day was not a competition; it was an opportunity to create mobile apps forFirefox Marketplace and the coming Firefox OS phone.

Who:
Students, Web developers, Hackers, software employees, mobile(Android, Blackberry, Nokia) developers from in and around Bangalore and Mozilla community members from across the country participated in the event. 180 members in total participated in the hackathon, that include staff from ThoughtWorks.

The App Days Bangalore event was free to register but by invitation only basis. At first, 300 registration slots were opened for the event, all the slots were filled in less than 24 hours time! We had planned only for 150 members, we waited for a week and re-opened registrations for another 300 slots, again the tickets sold out in no time. 600 registrations in total!! App Day India crew reviewed each applicant manually and extended invitations to 230 members. Some of the criteria was to have some basic knowledge of HTML5, JavaScript and lot of interest for Firefox OS and Marketplace.

Why:
To build apps! The Firefox Marketplace was looking for open web apps that work well on mobile for Firefox OS and Firefox for Android. This event encouraged all kinds of web apps.

App Demo's:
Around 23 teams! demoed their app/ working prototype at the end of the day, out which the App Day crew selected 8 apps based on various factors. These 8 demoers were given a surprise gift, a voucher that would get them the Firefox OS Developer Preview Phone. These 8 demoers will be contacted by Mozilla late March – early April 2013 to update regarding how they can collect the phone.

Below is a list of demoers, their app name, and link to where app is hosted:

  Team Name App Name Link
1 Dhiraj Number conversion  
2 WeatherFox WeatherFox  
3 Sanjay Periodic & Hindi-mate  
4 Chetan Anand Learn with Fun [Featured]  
5 Hrushikesh Sudoku  
6 Satvik Calci, Tic Tak Toe & Verge  
7 Vishwaprasath Crush Meter [Fun]  
8 Vishnu Bubble Game & Lisa  
9 Yuvi Indic Type Tool [Featured] github.com/yuvipanda/indic-typing-tool (also live at yuvi.in/indic-typing-tool/index.html)
10 Dron Rathor File Upload  
11 Keerthi C Chetana  
12 Kishan Choubay & Aditya Stock Watcher [Featured] – Github Url: http://xadhix.github.com/stockwatcherGithub

– manifest url: http://xadhix.github.com/stockwatcher/manifest.webapp

– Firefox MarketPlace url: https://marketplace.firefox.com/app/stockwatcher/
13 Pradeep Photosharing  
14 Ali Note App  
15 Jaydev Pitstop [Featured] https://github.com/jdev005/pitstop
16 Makkar Labs/ Karthik Hariharan Browse With Me App [Featured] http://makkarlabs.in/bbmonkey/www/ & https://github.com/makkarlabs/bbmonkey
17 Selvan Micromax ablet flashing, homescreen mode [Featured]  
18 Hemanth Nearby App  
19 Jayesh/ Videsh Snake and Ladder  
20 Reetika Roy Tic Tac Toe [Featured]  
21 Yati Good Samaritan [https://github.com/yati-sagade/good-samaritans]
22 Ganesh Task List  
23 Anuj Duggal Event App [Featured] https://github.com/AnujDuggal/MozillaEventApplication/

In detail:
The event date, January 26th is the Republic Day of India and it was Saturday, still our expectations were positive – the food was arranged for 200 members, extra spike busters, space to spread-out, everything was set. On the event day, the registrations opened around 8.30 AM, all the registered attendees were given: 1. Firefox OS pen drive with all the resources required to start building Apps 2. Firefox lanyard with name tag(India flag themed), 3. A Firefox OS App day notebook, and 4. Sticker. The venue got fully packed by 10.00 AM!

The venue, ThoughtWorks Bangalore itself has fantastic arrangement, one big hall with work tables with in-built power sockets, each table was big enough to accommodate 10-12 members. Two projectors were set-up so that everyone in the hall has proper view. All the pillars in the hall were covered with white glass, which can be used as whiteboard to brainstorm. Can't tell how much we are in love with the ThoughtWorks office! All the participants squeezed in the main hall for the introductory session.

The day started with all the participants singing Jana Gana Mana, our national anthem. Imagine 180 people singing national anthem together. The energy levels were at peak!

We had two guests for the event, Matt Basta(Web Developer at Mozilla) and Arun Ganesan(UX Designer at Mozilla). Matt and Arun came all the way from Mountain View, California to join us for this event. The twist was we had no confirmation from Matt Basta that he reached India or that he would join for the event. Arun reached on time and we got in touch. Arun and a few of us sat together during the dinner (on 25th January) and re-designed the agenda in case we don't hear from Matt Basta. As a final try we sent Matt a message through social media and w00t! Around 10.00 PM we get a call from Matt and that he is all set for the event next day morning! On the event day, Matt Basta was the first to reach the venue, he rocked the show that day. He gave a detailed talk introducing Firefox OS. Arun talked on the User Experiance aspects and answered questions from the participants. The talk's by Arun and Matt were short and effective.

After the talk's there was a short tea break, In the tea break a group came to us and ask if they can get some spaceto sit and start hacking. Those who already got space started diving in to the resources provided and got started coding apps for the Firefox OS. There was a lot of enthusiasm everywhere. The second hall which was in ground floor was set-up and ready to use by the end of the tea break. The participants got spread out in two halls. Thanks to the App Day Crew: ThoughtWorks team and Mozilla Reps worked together as a team throughout the event. We had enough experts to look after both technical and non-technical needs of develpers in both the halls. The App Day Crew helped particpants how to access mobile Web APIs and how to use the Firefox OS Simulator in the desktop browser to view and test their apps. There was not a single instance when the network went down or someone complained about the wi-fi speed. The venue full of happy hackers. :)

Hall 2

The only tough time was asking participants to leave their machines and go have snacks and lunch.

Delicious North and South Indian food was served for lunch and dinner.

The customized Firefox OS App Day swag that Mozilla sent from London got struck with border customs, we had to produce the swag locally at Staples India – brilliant quality and good service. They produced and delivered goods with in less than 24 hours notice, Staples delivered the swag at 9.00 PM on 25th January! The customs cleared only one box with the pendrives and it got delivered on the 25th afternoon. So by the night we had all the swag that was needed for the event!

The App Day crew did an amazing work through out the event. It was a great learning experience as this was the first time the regional community hosted an event of this scale from scratch in a city new to us. Hosting a hack event was one part and managing 25 Mozillians from across the country - their food, travel, accommodation was the second part. Hope to do a separate blogpost on the challenges and the learnings we had. This event will remain special to the Mozilla India community as we all worked together to make it happen. The regional community is looking more promising than ever. Stay tuned for more amazing events from us.

THANKS to everyone who joined us at Firefox OS App Day Bangalore. THE BEST developers we have seen, great ideas, and amazing apps! Congratulations and Keep building apps for FirefoxOS Marketplace.

Thank you ThoughtWorks for supporting with the event. Youhave a fantastic team!

Thank you Matt Basta and Arun Ganesan for coming all the way to support the event.

Thank you Mozillians for making this event possible and thanks Galaxy for all the hard work!

Bangalore, You Rock!!

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mozillaindia/sets/72157632656050905/
Event Website: http://events.mozillaindia.org/
Event Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/141918585960338/

What's next?
After the huge success of App Day Bangalore, several colleges across India are reaching to us to host similar hackathons, we are workingon hosting the same at several regions in the coming days. App Days Kolkata is scheduled during March 22-23. Stay tuned!

If you have any question or would like to connect with us, please contact events at mozillaindia dot org

P.S. Have you blogged or taken pictures at the event? We'd love to see them! Please share the link to the same below.
Note to self: have a pro photographer for next events.