Looks like we are scaling again. I’ve had a pretty interesting week or so chatting with Rejeeb Abdulrahiman from Qatar who’s giving some great traction in setting up a Mozilla Community in the region.
I’ve been around this block a couple of times; helping new Mozilla communities setup and scale with every time being a new exciting experience with a diverse group of great individuals this time being with Rejeeb who’s just 15 years old with some pretty amazing insights on cultivating a Mozilla community in Qatar. A point to note though that is quite timely with what I’m working on right now: the Contribute Toolkit is that there are several steps that pop up whenever a new community does so; documenting this would be a great complement to what mentors/community builders do in supporting the growth of Mozilla. So decided, a checklist/howto setup a community is going up on the toolkit…more on that later.
Back to Mozilla Qatar….
So far, we have a small group of young people really looking forward to get the community off the ground. A first planning meeting was held that yielded a couple of ideas for a first community event to be held along with some action items for people to get involved.
A couple of FAQs I usually get and did get in this instance:
- Is Mozilla all about coding?
- No there a bunch of non-technical contribution opportunities such as : SUMO, QA, Affiliates, Localization, visual Design, Education (Webmaker) etc
- Benefits around contributing/supporting Mozilla, to be more specific, are there rewards for contributions? This could probably phrase to why should I contribute
- We do give swag from time to time 🙂 though some great rewards as a contributor could be noted as:
- Synergies: you get peer support from highly qualified mozillians to help/give feedback on personal stuff you are working on that relate with Mozilla
- Career (Resume): Mozilla is a real life organization with actual projects and problems for you to get involved with and solve which builds your experience in your field of profession
- Interact and meet with really smart and creative people: who work and contribute at Mozilla
- Mentorship: great thing about Mozilla, we don’t lock you out over lack of experience, if you feel you can do something with some help, you’ll be right at home over here with great mentors ready to help when you get stuck
- We do give swag from time to time 🙂 though some great rewards as a contributor could be noted as:
- Can Mozilla be supported through functional areas created and managed by local contributors?
- Great way to diversify and support local contributors. It’s encouraged to work together with the already existing functional areas when coordinating local activities.
Rejeeb is now prepping for a 50 pax event later on in September. We are gathering ideas here to make it a success, do feel free to give some input.
ps: Facebook page’s also up: https://www.facebook.com/mozillaqatar