Sarah Doherty

Always thinking. Always dreaming.

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  2. MozCamp Chile and Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre 2009

    I’ve been thinking about writing this blog post before I even set foot in Chile.  Prior to my departure I knew this trip was going to change my life, but wasn’t exactly sure to what extent.  Now, being back in the United States and slowly re-adjusting to my old routine, I still can’t find the words to capture the magic, excitement, passion and hope five days of Mozilla community building created.

    I first heard about Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre (JRSL), on June 16th, my second day at Mozilla.  Thinking back to that Tuesday, the idea of planning an event of this size seemed impossible and overwhelming, but I think we did a pretty good job in pulling it off.  I could author a book with all of the people I would like to thank, but a super special thanks to Laura Mesa, Rodrigo Garcia, José LeCaros, Chofmann, Seth Bindernagel, the JRSL Team (Egyptians) and many other Mozillians for making this week my Mozilla fairytale.

    In many ways this event was very different than any other event we have done in the past because:

    1. The primary focus was to bring together the Hispanic community.
    2. We attached two events together, the first (MozCamp) focusing on the community and the second (JRSL) focusing on the Hispanic open source community that we hoped to recruit into becoming contributors of the Mozilla project.

    I think the best way to break down this post is by identifying the two events:

    MozCamp Chile (October 5-6, 2009)

    With 40 community members and Mozilla employees, we were able to spend two fantastic days focusing on both community and Mozilla initiatives.  MozCamp was a fantastic experience for me but there are two highlights that stick out to me:

    1. The afternoon sessions where I was able to learn about the projects community members were working on.
    2. The final open discussion on Tuesday, where we were able to divide up into groups and figure out how to organize the Hispano community over the following year.

    Besides all of the knowledge transfer that took place, I enjoyed getting to know all of you during the coffee breaks and lunches and learning about your passion for Mozilla and open source.

    Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre (October 7-9, 2009)

    After two long days of MozCamp Chile, what could be better than continuing the momentum with a 3-day conference with multiple tracks, keynotes and a Mozilla booth.  With over 1,000 conference attendees, JRSL was the place where we all bonded as a community.  We worked so hard to setup the Mozilla booth and very quickly realized that we would have to ration swag or it would all disappear immediately.  I enjoyed seeing the creativity of the touchscreen demos, the support through each Mozilla keynote/track talk and how excited everyone was to see Mozilla at one of the primary open source events in South America.

    I think what pulled at my heart and made this such an emotional trip for me was the wonderful friendships that were created during the week.  From relaxing in the war room with the JRSL team, to eating empanadas, steaks and pisco sours with Mozillians to trudging through TranSantiago not quite sure if we needed an orange or green pass for the subway, these were the bits of the travel that made me fall in love.  The week blurs together for me in a way that leaves me with a huge smile on my face, yet many tears in my eyes.

    Based on the extreme amounts of activity on communidad-mozilla, mozchile09 mailing list, twitter, flickr, facebook, mozchile09 mashup page and press coverage, we all left feeling inspired about Mozilla and the Hispano community.  I’m looking forward to continuing to building our friendship, growing Mozilla Hispano and hopefully seeing all of your faces next year.

    As Rodrigo Garcia would say, “We’re in touch”.

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