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Celebrating 10 years of Reps

Last week the Reps program celebrated its 10 years anniversary. To honor the event, a week of celebrations took place, with meetings in Zoom rooms and virtual hangouts in specially decorated Hubs rooms. During that week, current Reps and Reps alumni shared memories of the past years, talked about their current work, and discussed future plans and aspirations.

The Reps program was created with a simple narrative in the mind of its founders (William Quiviger and Pierros Papadeas), to bring structure to the regional communities and help them grow. Throughout the last years, the Reps have served their communities, by growing them and mentoring them, supporting all Mozilla’s big projects and launches, and pivoting to be able to help where the organization needed them the most. From the 1 million Mozillians initiative to the Firefox OS days, and from the Quantum launch to the recent foxfoooding campaign, Reps have always stepped up for the challenge, giving a helping hand, organizing thousands of events, and amplifying Mozilla’s work and mission. And is that spirit that we wanted to celebrate during the last week. A spirit of giving and helping.

 

The event

Due to the pandemic, an event with physical attendance was not possible. However, that didn’t discourage the Reps. A full-week virtual event was organized instead (special kudos to Francesca Minelli for all the work on planning and coordinating it) that included virtual talks in Zoom rooms and hanging out time to two Hubs rooms. There was a dedicated Reps room and a room for communities. The first day we kicked off with a trip down memory lane. Reps alumni and longtime Reps were invited to talk about their experiences during the first days of the program. The day closed with a talk and Q&A with Mitchell Baker about the significance of the Reps program and how Reps can contribute to the future of Mozilla. The second day was dedicated to the current state of the program, where Reps had a chance to chat with the Reps council and its current work. The last 2 days were dedicated to the current work of Reps and how it is affecting the rest of the organization with talks from both staff and also volunteers presenting their communities. During the last days, we also focused on how Reps can improve, gathered feedback and suggestions for the future of the program.

Long time Reps and Reps alumni

Long time Reps and Reps alumni

Hanging out at the Hubs room

And what about the future?

 

For the future we are focusing on 2 main pillars: 1) improving the mentorship program, so Reps can feel more supported and be able to do more 2) work more on how we can bring volunteers to product work. The last part is already happening via the campaigns. We want to work more on how we can bring volunteers earlier on product experience and ideation and nevertheless, spreading the word. A busy future is ahead for the Reps but we are ready for it. Reps onwards!

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