AppDay Malabar

February 15, 2014 was a very special day for GEMS Arts & Science College. The day started with a pleasant morning at the heights of Malappuram district. Faheem coordinated the event in the college. The participants were just settling down in their seats when the mozillian team arrived.

As per the agenda, Abid gave an introductory speech and talked about Mozilla. He stressed on the importance of a private web and openness of the secure web and also about his experience of working in the community.

Next, Midhun took control of the mic and talked about Mozilla’s Mission and its benefits and also gave the participants of previous events to share their experiences. Then Anush took a small session on Privacy and Open Web.

eKuttan then talked about the legend, web & street activist Aaron Swartz and his contributions in building an open and transparent web to the masses.

The participants was then divided into two sections according to their interest of sessions. We had 2 kinds of sessions lined up for the participants that day.

• Basic HTML/CSS workshop – where we had planned to equip the ones with little or no HTML knowledge.
• Firefox OS App Development – a full fledged app development workshop with all the necessary information to build apps for Firefox OS

The two teams were sent separately to two different computer labs.

TEAM 1 : Basic HTML/CSS Workshop

The basic HTML/CSS workshop was handled by Anush Anilkumar.

TEAM 2 : Firefox OS App Development

The main AppDay sessions were handled by Praveen Sridharand Binoy Balu.
Shine Nelson coordinated both sessions by swapping labs often, running to each participant and troubleshooting their problems as well as clicking photos of the event. 

At the ‘basics’ lab, Anush Anilkumar taught how the web was made which was followed by making some very basic apps.

At the ‘advanced’ lab, Binoy Balu started the session with the introduction of the important web technologies – HTML5 and CSS3. He emphasized on the new features of HTML5 as well as CSS3. He also gave a brief idea on how to learn using Mozilla Developer Network (MDN).

Praveen Sridhar then took control and started off by explaining the various Web APIs and how Firefox OS is created. He explained the messaging and calling function in Firefox OS with a live demonstration.That inspired many to try it out. He also explained the functions used in the making of the phone.

The forenoon sessions described how simple it was to develop web-apps for Firefox OS. That boosted the interested in the participants to try making application for Firefox OS. The sessions broke for lunch at 011:00PM.

Afternoon-session

The afternoon session started with an open competition for both teams. The participants divided themselves into a team of 2 members and started making the layout of their applications. Meanwhile, Praveen and Shine helped them with their doubts and bugs. They also taught how to create the manifest file for making the webapp work.

The essence of enthusiasm was floating in the air which drove each of the minute teams into the mood of competition. Praveen explained how to use the marketplace to publish their apps.

Abid explained about the types of contributions one can do for achieving the ultimate mission of mozilla. It helped them realize the influence of mozilla in the internet world.

We wound up the AppDay around 5:00PM and the 5 best applications was awarded Mozilla swags. It was really nice to know that they came up with productive ideas in the little time given to them. A ‘Blood Bank Database’ app was chosen to be the best app of the day. We had winners from both labs. We gave an extra consideration weightage to the apps from the ‘basics’ lab since they had just learnt the basics of HTML and they too came up with FFOS apps that were comparable with the apps from the ‘advanced’ lab.

We gave each participants a sticky note to share their feedback. The general feedback was that the event was well accepted and organized and the participants were looking forward for more events by Mozilla Kerala.

As the proverb goes, “All that’s well Ends well” – Team Mozilla Kerala had the same experience on 15 Februaary, 2014 at GEMS Arts & Science College, Perinthalmanna. Everyone went back home with a satisfaction learning about web and also to apply their potential in making the web a better place for everyone. We hope that we were able to impart the interest in developing apps for Firefox OS into the participants. We expect more app developers from the event.

AppDay Malabar was a great success for Team Mozilla Kerala as Doing Good becomes part of our Code.