Maker Party what’s that?
Maker Party is Mozilla’s annual global campaign to teach the web through hands-on learning and making. The Mozilla Gujarat community, along with educators, organizations and enthusiastic web users, will be teaching and learning the web in hundreds of classrooms and cafes, libraries and living rooms all around the world. It’s all part of our effort to teach the culture, mechanics and citizenship of the web. The event comprises of both talk session and hands on session. Throughout the course of events various discussions will take place that will help how we can make better internet.
So now i guess everyone have got the idea what’s Maker Party is.
It was around last week of August, I called Mehul for a casual talk which apparently lasted for more than an hour. During the call i told Mehul why don’t we plan a first ever Maker Party in Gujarat at that point of time we both have no idea how to proceed and all, so Mehul told let’s discuss on this through a online call and let’s see how the things will work out.
In the first week of September as discussed we had a online call around 8pm IST. Since we both have no idea how to start of and all first we both had clear discuss on this and started drafting Maker Party plan, so that it will help us to gather all the volunteers and tell them about Maker Party Gujarat and i know it was for the very first time in Gujarat and volunteers of Gujarat community were all in tension all of sudden since Me and Mehul had decided to have one in the month of October that means we hardly had a month to host the event in Gujarat. So all the volunteers were in shock saying is that possible to do one within a short time of span? After that question thrown by volunteers i taught for a while and i said myself that everything is possible if we work together and i said yes because i was confident about that i told Mehul yes we can do nothing is impossible if we work together. So Me and Mehul started working together on daily basis and we fixed the approximate date as 21st October 2016 and 22nd October 2016 and Mehul started to search for the venue and Mehul told me that he has one friend who can help us in getting the venue and it was none other than Pravash Dey(Director of 1947 incubation center). He helped us to get the venue and its was none other than one of the core university of Gujarat ‘Gujarat Techonological University’.
After finalizing the venue Mehul started reaching out to the college staff and help them out to sort the things and make arrangements for the sessions. Back of that Me and Mehul were contacting speaker and getting confirmation from them for their session.
Since Mehul,Viral and Me taking care of speakers and getting confirmation from them, viral from our team was busy in designing the website for the maker party. As soon as the site was live we published the site and started online registration. Here is the link for the site MakerPartyGujarat
Once the site was up we started getting online registration. In between we got a call from college authorities to changes the dates for the Maker Party since they had some other events on that particular day and Mehul reached college and had discussion with them on this and during the meeting he finalized 18th & 19th October 2016 for the event. And after finalizing the dates we informed the same to core team and they were shocked don’t know what to tell since dates which we finalized previously were 21st & 22nd October 2016 that means 3more days earlier than scheduled dates. I told everyone not to get panic and just keep on working on their individual tasks, since i was confident enough that this can be done i kept on motivating everyone when ever we had a call or online meeting through hangout. Once dates were finalized our design team started creating posters
Once everything got finalized we started doing marketing about the event throw social media, spread of word and with the help of volunteers whom we sent them to college to tell them about the Maker Party and stick the those pamphlets in their respective college notice board so that student will get to know more about the event.
After all this planning and making arrangements for the event their comes the day when i was suppose to fly to Ahmedabad it was 14th October were i started packing my luggage you know how and when engineers pack their luggages 😛 and it was very first time that i was going to meet mehul before that i haven’t meet him in personally or in what ever it may be. I know you all will be shocked that without meeting for a single time how this strong bonding can be made. Basically Mehul and I meet each other in social media during my early stages when i started contributing to Mozilla. At that time of period i was searching for someone who could help me out in building the Gujarat community and some how i got in touch with Mehul in facebook i don’t remember exactly how we came in touch i am very bad at remembering :P. When I got in touch with Mehul at that particular point of time he was in Nashik and he started his contribution from there and started building Nashik community. Once that is done he left Nashik and was staying in Ahmedabad were he got his first job and started his professional life. How far it may be but we used to be in touch on frequent basis. Once he reached there we decided to build a community in Gujarat before that there was no such community over there and Mehul started building community and i used work remotely to build the community over there. If i keep on telling it goes on so let’s get back to our event.
It was 15th October 2016 and my flight was scheduled at 4:30pm IST. As everyone know how the IT professional will be when the times comes to waking up in the morning so same as with me i woke up at around 11am in the morning and got ready by 1pm and booked a cab to leave for the airport, reached airport around 2pm and completed all check-ins everything and was waiting for the flight to arrive its was around 4pm they announced to board a flight and here i started my journey to Ahmedabad.
As soon as I boarded the flight I was very much excited to meet Mehul for the first and that it was almost after 3year when we meet in facebook. As soon as I landed in the Ahmedabad airport i got a call from Mehul and I informed him that I just landed in the airport will come out in 15-20min and it was around 7pm IST. I came out of airport were Mehul and Sumit were waiting for me. And finally 3long year wait has come to an end.
And we started to go to hotel room were college authorities provide me a stay. On the way to hotel room Mehul told me that they have planned to go to play dandiya. I know everyone will be in a question mark what’s that ??. It is nothing but a traditional dance form of Gujarat which is performed during Dussera festival and this is celebrated for 9long days and it was that time when the event was scheduled. After reaching hotel room i got relaxed for sometime and freshen up my shelf and left to play dandiya.
The time we reached that venue it was almost around 9pm IST were many Mozillians were waiting for me to come to venue were I met Varun, Mansi and few others over there. Below is one of the click which I had with Mehul during that play.
After this Mehul,Haard,Sumit, Varun and Me went to some small dhaba to have some delicious dinner over there and the time was around 1am IST. It was almost after 2year i was having pure Gujarati food. After having delicious dinner it was time to hit the bed as soon as we reached the room. Next day morning i.e 16th October 2016 we had scheduled to have a one final meeting with all the volunteers. Since we also had volunteer who are coming from other cities we had to planned one more meeting for those volunteers as well. During the meeting first I introduced myself and further I proceed with sharing the Maker Party schedule and told them about the event planning stuff so that it will help me to get some suggestion from them in case if had missed something.
After the meeting over we went to hotel room and had some snacks and started roaming around the city and Sumit had some work related to banner design, we all had to come back the venue. As soon as we reached venue Me and Mehul started checking on the arrangements and all other stuffs in case if we had missed something until then Sumit was back to venue.
So again it was time to have some delicious dinner so we were searching for a good hotel to have a dinner. And finally we went to the hotel name “ELLESIUM” were we started of with few starter and taught that will go for main course but after tasting the starter we kept on ordering the same starter for more than 5-6times(cheese masal papad :P). After having delicious dinner oops sorry delicious starters 😛 we all came back to hotel room and I started checking on online registrations to see how many we have got it and I was shocked to see the count was ~2500 and I was not sure of exact count of offline registration at that particular point of time Mehul and Haard told me that it was around 1000 and few lists of offline list was there with Mansi so we were not sure with the exact offline registration count. After that Mehul and me were thing about did we miss something which has to been taken care of or something else related to event etc.. Late night planning check out the below pic and see how Mehul looks during serious mode. With this we winded out the day.
As usual I mentioned above how engineers and internet lovers wake up in the morning and it was around 11am when we got a call from reception saying that car is waiting for you to go to venue and that’s now we woke up that morning and I was shocked by hearing that because we remember that we haven’t booked the cab and how come this is possible and Mehul went down to check who had sent the cab and once Mehul came back to room he told college staff has sent the car to pick us up and we were like just woke up and we told the cab driver to go we will come by our self and until then I got ready for the volunteers meetup since i told that we had set of people who were coming from different cities and who were the part of volunteer. So I got ready in 20min and I was waiting for Sumit to come so that we can go to venue and make the arrangements for the meeting.
As soon as I came out of hotel room I got a call from Sumit that he is coming in 10min to hotel asking me to wait so that we can go together and I was waiting for Sumit at hotel reception as soon as he reached hotel, we both reached venue at around 12pm IST. I know everyone is waiting to see how the venue so below is the pic of venue.
As soon as we reached venue Sumit told me that he will check on banner printing stuff , since he was leading the design team for the Maker Party.
After sometime volunteers started coming to the venue and yet again I briefed every single thing that what’s gone happen tomorrow and what each individual task they has to take care about. After briefing them on what all thing they have to take care we started giving id cards to volunteers, once the id cards were distributed I asked them to have some rest and come to venue by 7am IST the event date i.e. 18th October 2016 morning and everyone left the venue.
Once everyone left the venue Me, Mehul and very few volunteers were there to finalize everything. It was around 9pm IST I got a call from Chabhil Bhai Patel who was EX-MLA and at present he is “Director of Seed Corportaion of Gujarat & Director of Mahindra Tractor Gujarat” and apparently he was one of close friend of my dad. He has called me up to his home during call and I told him that i will be there in next 30min. I asked to Sumit to come with me and we both left the venue and reached his home around 10pm IST, as soon as we reached he welcomed both of us and he took us to a discuss room were I can explain him about the event what it is all about etc. after telling him about the event he was quiet impressed with our mission and goal and he accepted our invitation to be a Chief Guest for tomorrow’s event. After the discussion Sumit and me left to hotel room were everyone one including Mehul was waiting. As soon as we reached I conveyed this news to Mehul and entire team.
And as usually none of us had any food for the entire day and we all left the hotel in search of food roaming all over the city at around 12am IST. After having the delicious food we reached the hotel room and I told Mehul let us stop online registration which we both even had any clue about the count. So as soon as I reached hotel I opened my laptop and started checking for total number of registration and Haard was handling offline registration.
As soon as I opened the registration form it was crossed around 3500 online registration and until then Haard from my team gave me the count of offline registration and it was around ~2500. Me and Mehul both of us were in shock don’t know what to do and it was almost 2am in the morning and I told Mehul lets hit the bed soon so that we can woke up early in the morning and reach the venue before the volunteers reached the venue there was huge crowd waiting outside the venue to kick start the registration and the events.
As soon as volunteers reached the venue we started the registration desk were our volunteers were having the Maker Party stamps to press on participates hands.
VOLUNTEERS AT REGISTRATION DESK
MAKER PARTY INK STAMPS ON PARTICIPATES HANDS
VOLUNTEERS AT REGISTRATION DESK
PARTICIPANTS HAVING MAKER PARTY INK PAD ON THEIR HANDS
Since we had opening ceremony scheduled at 10am IST our Cheif Guest reached the venue on time and I got a call from them that we reached venue and immediately I received them and asked them to have some seat were the open ceremony was scheduled to take place. Around 10am Director of the college reached the venue and we kick started the opening ceremony
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OUR CHEIF GUEST CHABHIL BHAI PATEL WITH HIS FAMILY
CHABHIL BHAI PATEL WITH HIS ENTIRE FAMILY
OUR CHEIF GUEST CUTTING RIBBON BESIDE HIM WE HAVE DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE
After ribbon cutting Director of college shared her taught of the event.
After that Me and Mehul were called on the stage and we both were felicitated by the director of college.
MEHUL GETTING FELICITATED BY DIRECTOR
MYSELF GETTING FELICITATED BY DIRECTOR
After this our Cheif Guest shared his valuable taught on the event and how we can improve the education system and he told me in personally that he is ready to support us in whatever way he can to improve the education and to ensure it reaches maximum people threw out the country.
As soon as he finished the talk since he had a very busy schedule he has to leave from there but was happy to see his entire family who stayed with us till the first half of the event.
Once the open ceremony was done we quickly started of with the season were we had multiple season going on parallel. Below is the list of seasons which happened on day1.
- Privacy and Security: This season was handle by our hacker babu Viral Parmar.
We had full packed crowd foe this season who all were eagerly waiting to start this season.
2. On FOSS and Campus Club: This season was handle by Myself were I gave an intro about open source, Mozilla project and campus club.
Were I had a quiet interacting season with the participants and who all were waiting to more about Mozilla community and how to start contributing to Mozilla etc.
3. Webcompact: Which was handle by our rep Mehul.
4. Material Design: Which was handled by Moin Saikh
In this season he also took the session on Mozilla Quality Assurance and on Mozilla Developers Network (MDN).
5. Laravel Framework: Which was handled by Jaimin Gohel.
We had jam packed crowed for this season has well.
6. Mozilla WebVr: Which was handled by Vishwas Brahmbhatt.
By the end of this season it was time for us to wined of day1. How come it is possible to wined of the day1 with having a group pic, and here comes the group pic
With this group pic we winded of the day1 season with a lot of expectations for day2.
Everyone left the venue by 6pm in the evening Me, Mehul and few other Mozillian waited for sometime to have a small discussion or meeting with the college staff about the happenings of day1 and we were also shocked to see that we had more than 3000+ participants for the day1.
Since we had a huge crowd on day1 we had to conduct the same session for the multiple times so that every participants gets benefited. On a serious note it was fun sharing the knowledge with such a huge crowd on the day1 and we cant imagine the crowd on day2. After small meeting with staff we all were so hungry that after leaving the venue we straightly went to some hotel to have some food.
After having the delicious food Mehul asked whether i have seen the River Front view in Ahmedabad and apparently the answer was no from me because i haven’t had that chance to visit that place, so after having a dinner Me, Mehul,Haard and Sumit went to River Front view around 11pm IST. It was amazing feeling after a tiring day1 were i felt relaxed.
With this we came to end of day1.
DAY2:
With of lots of energy we woke up early in the morning next day and reached the venue to make sure everything is arranged perfectly.After sometime participants slowly started gather at the venue.
Since we haven’t had the opening ceremony and all on day as soon as the participants reached the venue we started of with the sessions.
- Chat bot: Which was handled by Smith Takkar.
2. Test Pilot and Rust by Mehul:
3. Collaborative Business Model by Pankaj Bhimani
It was more interactive kind of session were participants were doing bit of fun activities and exercise during this session .
4. FOSS and Test Pilot: Which was handle by myself.
Because of huge crowd and public demand I had took this session on briefing them on Campus club, other Mozilla project and how to start contributing to Mozilla etc.
Again the full pack crowd on day2 i was loving it to interact more and more and trying to share my knowledge more and more.
5. Sales Force: Which was taken by Anuj.
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6. Pythoon: Jaishil Sukla.
With this we winded out the day2 and it was time for a closing ceremony by thanking each and every individual who supported and helped us to organize this first ever Maker Party in Gujarat. I would like to thank college staff,volunteers,photography team with you it was impossible to cover the entire event and a special thank to Mehul, Viral, Haard, Sumit, Mansi and how can i miss the college staff Toral ma’am,Tosha ma’am and Rutika ma’am the list goes on for supporting and bearing with me for those 2days.
It was one of the best event that i have conducted the in Gujarat and many more to come. Hope to see you guys soon. I
I know everyone is waiting to see the pics of Maker Party.
Flikr link to photo album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/145251384@N03/albums/72157674389111250
Pre coverage of the event in TOI: https://t.co/jwQ1nJSPZQ
Gujarati news link: http://m.gujaratsamachar.com/articles/display_article/gujarat-samachar-plus/reaching-innovation-for-the-creation-of-the-party-held-maker
Below is the pics of news paper after event news.
FOXYYYYYYYYYY!!!! 
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