cross-posted from the Mozilla blog

1,300 hackers, media-makers and educators gather in London to invent the web’s future

The 4th annual Mozilla Festival kicks off tomorrow in London. The three-day festival of making and learning is Mozilla’s biggest public event of the year, with more than 1,300 technologists, educators and thought leaders coming together from around the world to learn, make and teach the web.

This year we’re focused on teaching and learning. MozFest is always about shaping the web’s future together. This year’s theme will dig into how we can teach and empower web users, providing the skills they need to transform from passive consumers into active makers and creators.

We’ll gather at Ravensbourne in East London for three days of hacking and inventing together, building prototypes and curriculum for teaching everything from basic coding, to protecting online privacy, to integrating the open web into fields like journalism and science.

Shaping the web’s future together

“Technology alone cannot build the web the world needs,” says Mozilla’s Executive Director, Mark Surman. “For the web to stay open, accessible and free, we need people who understand the web’s basic building blocks, are able to create with them, and empowered to take control of their online lives. This year’s MozFest brings together brilliant people to tackle that challenge — through hands-on hacking, open collaboration, and imagining how the web can do more and do better.”

What are we making at MozFest?

The Festival has 10 key tracks where participants will work together on sprints and workshops with themes like…

• Teach the Web. New approaches for teaching digital skills, coding and webmaking.
• Connect Your City. Building local digital learning networks around the world.
• Skills and Badges. New ways to recognize skills and learning that happen anywhere.
• Look Who’s Watching. Privacy, surveillance and tracking. How do we protect transparency and user sovereignty online?
• Open Games. The web as an open gaming console for the world. Play and create next-generation web-based games.
• Source Code for Journalism. Creating the tools news organizations needs to thrive on the open web.
• Science and the Web. Redefining how we experiment, analyze and share scientific knowledge.
• Open Data for the Open Web. Uncovering and building with data from the web and everyday world.
• Making the Web Physical. Hacking on physcial devices and gizmos connected to the web in exciting new ways.
• Webmaking for Mobile. Making apps and tinkering with your own phone. The web as platform.

Launches and Announcements

Over the next three days, look for key announcements and launches here on the Mozilla blog around…

• a host of new features on Webmaker.org, including an exciting new tool to teach, learn and collaborate with others on the web
• a major update to Collusion, our popular tool for unveiling the way tracking and data sharing works online
• the announcement of the 2014 Open News fellows.

Keynotes

The Festival will also feature keynote addresses from Anil Dash, Aaron Pilhofer and Camile Francois, plus Mozilla’s own Mark Surman and Mitchell Baker. Others speakers include Aniwey, the 19-year old developer behind the smash hit game Candy Box; Andy Forrest, the founder of MakerKids, a project to bring science and technology into American classrooms through “hands-on innovation”; and MIT Labs’ Daniel Smilkov and Deepak Jagdish, who will share insights from Immersion, a tool they built to make sense of email metadata.

MozFest Badges

For the first time ever, this year’s participants will also be able to earn Open Badges, as part of Mozilla’s open source project to reimagine credentialing on the web. Participants can receive an official “MozFest Reveler” badge for attending, plus earn badges across the different Festival tracks. Participants can also issue their own Open Badges on-site using community-created tools like Makebadg.es and Achievery.com.

“MozFest is our biggest Maker Party of the year. It’s where many of Mozilla’s most innovative ideas have sprung to life in the past,” adds Surman. “Mozilla’s mission is to ensure the web remains a resource open to everyone. MozFest strengthens that global braintrust of bright people dedicated to championing a user-built web.”

Get involved

• Join the conversation on #MozFest. Or follow along in realtime with @Mozilla on Twitter.
• Watch for MozFest stories, photos and videos on the Mozilla Festival blog.
• Check out speakers and sessions. Session notes, prototypes and ways to get involved will be posted as the Festival unfolds.
• Teach the web with Mozilla Webmaker. Join our global community of people teaching digital skills and web literacy in their communities.