India is a country of contrasts, contradictions and festivals. Right in the second-most populous country in the world, a huge amount of contributors, who together form the Mozilla India community, support the force of Mozilla, sharing the ingredients for an open, better and safer web.
Thanks to 30+ official reps and about 500 people on the mailing list, the rather huge community hosted many events in the last couple of months, like for example the Mozilla Party in Pune. There are lots of other interesting events coming up, but before we’re going to look into the future, let’s step back into the past.
Mozilla’s presence in India was quite strong by the end of the last decade, thanks to plenty of student reps. But until 2011, there wasn’t a unified roof on them, everyone was on their own. The first attempt to build a community failed, however, the second one was more than just successful: A former Mozilla intern saw a need for a formal community to keep people together – irrespective of the projects. When he got to meet and discuss the same with other Mozillians, they came up with a brilliant plan.
After the first community meeting, the project was born – Mozilla India, including a website and a real community. The first official event, the Firefox 4 launch party, also got lots of exposure.
The community, which is full of diversity and cultures, has a potential to be 10 independent Mozilla Communities. Because there are more than 15 official languages in India, there is sometimes a lack of communication at times. But the members solve that problem by talking in English and sometimes in Hindi.
During the last few months, there has been an enormous traffic in active contribution and in hosting events as well. Thanks to them, the behemoth community, which doesn’t have a formal governance structure, has gained more and more contributors. The ones who have been on board since the very beginning provide useful suggestions, share them with people and help them take responsibilities.
For bringing an open web to the 1,2 billion inhabitants, Mozilla India definitely deserves to be in the spotlight this week! Check out their Facebook fanpage, other Spotlight entries or Bonjour Mozilla to find out more about other Mozillians.
Swarnava Sengupta
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