Last weekend I had a blast in Bhubaneshwar. Over two days, I was there at two different colleges for two Maker parties.

Saturday (23rd August 2014), we were at the Center of IT & Management Education (CIME) where we were asked to address a crowd of 100 participants whom we were supposed to teach webmaking. Trust me, very rarely do we get such crowd in events where we get the opportunity to be less of a teacher and more of a learner. We taught them Webmaking, true, but in return we learnt a lot from them.

Maker Party at Center of IT & Management Education (CIME)

On Sunday, things were even more fabulous at Institute of Technical Education & Research(ITER), Siksha 'O' Anusandhan University college, where we were welcomed by around 400 participants, all filled with energy, enthusiasm and the willingness to learn.

Maker Party at Institute of Technical Education & Research(ITER)

Our agenda for both days were simple....to have loads and loads of fun! We kept the tracks interactive and very open ended. On both days, we did cover the following topics:

• Introduction to Mozilla
• Mozilla Products and projects
• Ways of contributing to Mozilla
• Intro to Webmaker tools
• Hands-on session on Thimble, Popcorn and X-ray goggles and Appmaker

Both days, we concluded our sessions by giving away some small tokens of appreciation like e T-shirts, badges, stickers etc, to the people who had been extra awesome among the group. We concluded the awesomeness of the two days by cutting a very delicious cake and fighting over it till its last pieces.

Cake.....

Bading goodbye after two days was tough, but after witnessing the enthusiasm of everyone we met during these two events, I am very sure we are going to return soon to Bhubaneshwar for even more awesomeness.

A few people who are two be thanked for making these events sucessful and very memorable are:

1. Sayak Sarkar, the co-organizer for this event.
2. Sumantro, Umesh and Sukanta from travelling all the way from Kolkata and helping us out with the sessions.
3. Rish and Prasanna for organizing these events.
4. Most importantly, the entire team of volunteers from both colleges without whom we wouldn't havebeen able to even move a desk.

 p.s - Not to forget, we did manage to grab media's attention as well. The event was covered by a local newspaper.

The article in the newspaper next morning

While going through my twitter time-line this evening, I noticed Michelle Thorne's tweet stating that India leads with most Maker Party action this season.
Well, who doubts that! In India, we have a maker parties being organized almost every second day. My facebook wall and twitter timelime is like overloaded with posts, photos and updates from all the Maker Parties happening around me.

Maker Party, Pune

Well, if you are still not aware of this one, we are having the grand daddy of this maker parties in Pune on the 6th of September 2014. The executive director of Mozilla Foundation, Mark Surman, is going to be personally present for this event. Just like all maker parties, this event is an attempt to map and empower a community of educators and creative people who share a passion to innovate, evolve and change the learning landscape.

A few quick updates about this event:

•  Event date - 6th and 7th September
•  Event venue - SICSR, Model Colony, Pune
• Rough agenda for the event is going to be:
• 6th September 2014 (Day 1) 
• 10am - 11am : Mozilla introduction
• 11am - 12 : About Hive initiative
•  12 - 1pm: Rohit Lalwani - Entrepreneurship talk
•  1-2pm : Lunch break
•  2pm - 3pm: Webmaker begins with Appmaker
•  3pm - 4pm: Webmaker continues with Thimble
•  4pm - 4.45pm: Webmaker continues with Popcorn
•  4.45pm - 5.30pm : Webmaker continues with x-ray goggles
• 5.30pm - 6pm: Prize distribution (against best makes of the day etc). Science fair also ends
• 6pm - 7pm : Birds of feature
• 7pm : Dinner (venue - TBD)

Science fair will be from 12 noon to 6pm.
  

•  7th September 2014 (Day 2) 
• 1st Half: Community Meetup and Discussions on the future roadmap for Hive India,
  Long term partnership prospect meeting with partners.
•  2nd Half: Community training sessions on Hive and Train the trainer events.

 
For this event, we are having a variety of different training sessions, workshops and science displays - starting from 3D printing to wood-works, Origami to quad-copter flying and even film making.

If you have still not registered for this event, heres your chance: