posted on Thu, Jan 14 '16 under tag: mozilla

Mozilla has a lot of projects and activities. Getting involved with Mozilla has always been easy for people of any background.

Usually, when you decide to help someone or an organization in need, you ask them “hey, how can I be of the best use to you?”. And they would respond with their most pressing need. If you cannot help them with that, they would let you know their next most important need. And so on.

That simple algorithm of starting with the most important work lets you make a meaningful impact with your contribution.

But Mozilla is simply too large for anyone to figure out which parts are the most important and which contributions make the most impact. At least, that’s how it seemed because a lot of contributors had no idea what Mozilla’s goals where and what are the most important things to lend their hands in. To answer all that, last year Mozilla leadership came up with a clear vision on how to go about in the next 5 years.

You can read more about the mission, vision, and role in this strategic narrative.

After going through the strategic narrative, you should be having an answer to “If you were to start contributing to Mozilla today, what would your contribution be?”

In case you are too lazy, the participation team has some custom answers for you.

Connected Devices

I feel like Firefox OS working on mobile phones, TVs, watches, everything “smart” in my home, will be the future. And I want to build that future.

Connected Devices is the adult version of Firefox OS for phones. (Like Raichu is the evolution to Pikachu). Tomorrow more hardware will become “smart” and the Internet will be full of “things”.

Like any new technology, there is a very good chance that that connected Internet of Things will be populated by proprietary things. We might have refrigerators that stop working because the vendor doesn’t release upgrades, or pacemakers that have insecure back-doors, or watches that track wherever you go whatever you do and report to the manufacturer’s data center.

Connected Devices is our chance to prevent IoT turning into Internet of Shit.

Think of what you can do here:

Firefox OS is going to be the future driver of Internet of Things. And community is going to be an important pillar in this growth. So, you will decide what happens to Firefox OS. Let me know your thoughts about this (what should we focus on, how should community get involved, what should we do/not do, anything that comes to your mind)

Campus Campaign

I feel like Mozilla should catch people young. What if we can have a global campaign connecting people (especially students) with our core values?

Campus Campaign will be the microphone behind the loud push on privacy and surveillance that has been planned for 2016. Web literacy will become alive in this campaign. (Remember all that web literacy curriculum that we were translating?) Later we will pick up topics of inclusion, accessibility, diversity, etc.

Privacy being a stronghold of Mozilla, we will be able to develop and promote products to fight surveillance (everything that Mozilla builds has privacy embedded in it, haven’t they?)

Think of what you can do here:

“Campus” in campus campaign means that the focus is on students. Students are the people with time and energy. If we give them some resources too, imagine what they cannot do. Did that pop an idea or a question in your mind? Let me know.

These are just two answers. But these are the answers that participation team is betting on in the first half of 2016. In participation leadership summit next week, more than a hundred Mozillian participation leaders will be thinking, talking, planning, and building on these answers. Even if you have not been invited to the summit, it is important to make your thoughts heard. Either talk to me or start a conversation in our discourse category

If you were to start contributing to Mozilla today, what would your contribution be?

Like what you are reading? Subscribe (by RSS, email, mastodon, or telegram)!