The 2011 Mozilla Festival is now less than a month away! We’re looking for your help in spreading the word, to ensure the diverse range of skills we need are in the mix. Who’s your design challenge dream team? How do we make sure they’re there in London to brainstorm and hack with us?
This post provides some updated copy and links to answer Festival questions, list specific skill-sets we’re still looking for, and make it easier to spread the word. See you in London!
What is the Mozilla Festival?
The Mozilla Festival is a yearly “three-ring circus of innovation,” bringing together hundreds of passionate people to explore the frontiers of the open web. We mash developers, designers, and big thinkers together to make things that can change the world.
This year’s theme is Media, Freedom and the Web. How can the web can make us more creative, collaborative and connected in an age of broadcasters big and small? The Festival will gather leaders in news, media and the arts with technologists and open web developers for brainstorming, design challenges and sprints that will shape the future of media and the web.
500+ hackers, designers and media-makers
Moz Fest is not your usual tech conference. It’s a giant maker sprint, crammed with 500+ hackers, designers, journalists, musicians, DJs, and gamers. All actively *building* the future of media and the web together, through hands-on design challenges, brainstorms and hack sprints.
The Mozilla Festival is a place where big ideas are born, and where inspiring projects get their start. Last year’s Festival was focused on education and learning, and resulted in inspiring new community members, partnerships, and Mozilla projects like Hackasaurus and Open Badges.
Who’s coming?
- Leaders in media. Like the BBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Boston Globe, ZEIT Online and Knight Foundation.
- + Leaders in the open web and tech. Like Mozilla Labs, SoundCloud, Ushahidi, Creative Commons, and Participatory Culture Foundation.
- + Visionaries working at the intersection of both. Like you.
MozFest design challenges: What are we building?
The Mozilla Festival revolves around a series of design challenges that will bring together teams with diverse backgrounds and skill-sets. Participants will get access to state-of-the art tools, the Mozilla community, and each other — all using the open web to make and do things that advance the state of media.
We’re looking for inspired developers, design thinkers and interactive news experts to take part in design challenges like these:
- “Coming Up Next…”: Hacking the next killer news app | Design an HTML5 news app that does something amazing.
- Balancing the Newsflow: Real-time reporting vs. the big picture | Workflow and user experience that seamlessly integrates real time reporting with big picture context.
- Bespoke 3D: Customizing 3D models on the web | Empower non-techs to customize and print 3D models from the browser.
- HTML5 games | Port a classic game to run directly in the browser.
- Crowdsourcing Translation: Can audiences translate sources and stories on the fly? | Sketch translation interfaces and workflow for audiences and newsrooms
- Data-Driven Journalism: What’s in your field kit? | Assemble a utility belt for data-driven journalists
- Hack the DJ: Building a next-generation DJ kit | Wireframe, code and jam on a web-native DJ kit
- Hyperaudio Magic: Edit audio as easily as text | Edit an audio file by moving the text in its transcript
- Passing Notes in Class: Making educational video a social experience | Synchronize and super-charge online discussions around educational video
- Popcorn Bounties: Improve interactive video on the web | Drive open video by fixing and extending the Popcorn.js JavaScript library
- Verifying Breaking News Sources: How can we know who to trust? | A social approach to verifying sources in real-time crisis reporting
- Webmaking with Hackasaurus: How can we teach the world to hack? | Design online learning experiences that teach youth basic HTML and CSS
Who should come?
There’s specific design challenges tailor-made for:
- MEDIA-MAKERS: journalists, film-makers, citizen journalism editors, interactive news editors, news entrepreneurs, live bloggers, network theorists, social media reporters, localizers, news bureau reporters, translators, data journalists, open data experts, podcasters, radio journalists, video editors
- DEVELOPERS: news hackers, front end web developers, jQuery developers, news app developers, CAD users and developers, Javascript developers, WebGL developers, HTML5 developers, database developers, Processing.js developers, audio hackers, video coders, Popcorn developers
- DESIGNERS: interface designers, user experience designers, data visualization designers, infographic designers
- EDUCATORS: digital learning experts, educators, students, ed tech experts, digital literacy educators, kids, curriculum designers
- ARTISTS, GAMERS & BEYOND: 3D artists, game developers, modelers, open video evangelists, DJs, mashup artists, musicians, online identity experts, gamification experts
How do I register?
- Register here
- Learn more here
- Get in touch with questions or suggestions here: festival [at] mozilla [dot] org
How can I help spread the word?
- Tweet about it. (Here’s a sample.)
- Post or email about it. The Festival site is here. Email outreach copy is here.
We’re specifically looking for help with:
- Reaching out to the London design challenge and design community
- Spreading the word through the Mozilla Developer Network
- Having Festival design challenge facilitators reach out to their networks
- Reaching out to Hacks/Hackers chapters
- Letting tech journalists know about the Festival
Please post suggestions and help as comments here — or get in touch with matt [at] mozillafoundation [dot] org. Thanks — and see you in London!