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The Mozilla Firefox OS Mombasa Apps Day - 23rd March 2013

Finally! It certainly was long overdue. The Firefox Apps Event Mombasa was held on 23^rd March 2013. With their successful event in Nairobi a month ago, Mombasa Techies were clearly excited to bring the renowned, exhilarating and educational Firefox event home.

The event was held at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology Mombasa CBD Campus, for the better part of the day with participants showing no signs of leaving by the time the sun was setting! Turn over? Close to 120 plus participants was a major achievement for organizers. Local web developers, students from various Universities from across the city as well as respectable lecturers were part of the attendees. Of course where would the event be without the Mozilla Gurus themselves? A big ditto to Alex, Victor (Vicky), Hezron (Hezy), Joseph and Sharon who managed to fly in from Nairobi especially for the day.

A big thank you to the organization team is certainly due as well; Ms. Zahra, Musa and Andrew for their exceptional voluntary contribution to keep the herd in check at the registration desk; Alifyah Ganijee and Said Fuad, the Mombasa Mozilla Representatives for ensuring all nitti-grit-ties were well ironed out and proving the event to be an admirable success; A blessed‘Asante’ to Anthony for that delightful Prayer that got the event kicked off; The short and sweet welcome gesture by the Director Mrs. Fridah Theuri; The head of the ICT program JKUAT, Mr. Ondago for his encouraging words that left every participant in the room feeling like the next ‘Einstein’ of the technology age; Alifyah and Said for introducing the Mombasa Tech Community and what it’s all about; Alex Wafula, the Mozilla Lead Rep for highlighting the role Mozilla as a non-profit organization plays in the community as well as briefing everyone on the various Mozilla projects that are on-going; Joseph together with Hezron, both Mozilla Reps, finally got the ball rolling, introducing the Firefox OS and what it entailed. And how would I end this without giving a humbled bow to the team of John, Richard, Tabitha, Peter, Harry and Joyce for serving us a most fulfilling lunch.

The best part of the event came in the afternoon, with participants being given a chance to showcase their innovative and inventive ideas by building the most unique and outstanding apps designed for the Mozilla market place that function with the OS simulator. Kudos to the team that took the day by creating a most simple yet fantastic, ‘Torch App’. Guys, it seems gone are the days of power blackouts in Mombasa it seems (not to mention a big help to our watchmen at night)! But, other than the torch team, the rest of the groups came up with wonderfully creative ideas deserving of just as big an applause.

So, there you have it, it’s a wrap! A richly educative day that fed our brains to their limits and opened up new ideas and meanings for each and every participant. Thank you Mozilla, it was a pleasure! 

For anyone who may want to view snaps of the event please do so at our website gallery, Mozilla Mombasa Facebook page and Flickr. (Wonder why no one came up with an app to view the event photos on? Next time?DEFINITELY!

HISTORY

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

The Mombasa Tech Community is a brain child of three people. Ahmed Maawy, Alifiyah Ganijee and Said Fuad. The major objective behind the formation of this community was to bridge the gap that was at Mombasa, and ultimately within the coastal region in Kenya. The region has a massive amount of tech talent, but has no direction or roadmap for this talent. Ultimately the tech talent within the coast faces tons of challenges when it comes to career growth and exposure. The community's objectives seek to link this talent to the global village, and we believe that this talent has to have access to opportunities that arise globally.

The conception of this idea was a vision that Ahmed Maawy constructed when he initially moved to the coast and did the first Ushahidi community meetup, after he had also done a Google Technology User Group (GTUG) meetup earlier that year. Together with two friends Ahmed had, namely Said and Alifiyah, they charted a roadmap on how to create a technology community around the coast.

It had been a challenging journey, one that so many other people had taken and had not managed to gain much traction. So the team had to be unique and innovative in the way they will do it. Having worked with the iHub before Ahmed had seen how communities can be engaged and the value tech could add to the community. Mombasa and the coast are quite unique, what works in Nairobi will not work in Mombasa, it takes local people to understand the local values and cultures to get around getting things done in very innovative ways. And so the team set out to carry out a very challenging task ahead of them.

One year after the conception of the idea, the team has worked with Mozilla, Wikipedia and Google to launch local events and contests within Mombasa, with the help of organizations such as CAMARA. This is only just the beginning of more to come, even though only 4 organizations have helped support the community activities, there is still a lot of work to be done before we create a massive technology innovation center and community, and engage more and more partners. The community envisions greater things to come through collaboration with partners, and the sky shall be the limit.

OBJECTIVES

The objective is to grow and further build the capacity for the community within Mombasa and the Coast and create empowered individuals capable of transforming themselves as well as their society by means of innovation and technology.

GOALS:

1. Create a tech ecosystem throughout the Kenyan Coast.
2. Empower the various players in the tech arena.
3. Foster research and innovation.
4. Create opportunities for everyone.
5. Contribute to regional development. 

Welcome to Mombasa Tech Community, a tech start-up which focuses on inspiring and developing upcoming innovative technology ideas through networking, technical training and support and professional mentoring and coaching.

It brings together techpreneurs, entrepreneurs, developers, designers, investors and donors and provides them an opportunity to share knowledge, learn, find mentors and expound on tech ideas that will lead to the development of new technologies in Kenya and globally at large.

Here comes technology and innovation to the coast, in a blend that is tropical – and most important, in a blend that sings to the tune of the coastal people.