MOZILLA GLOBAL SPRINT HACKATHON
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Mozilla Global Sprint in Nigeria hosted by Digital Grassroots |
MOZSPRINT:
On May 10 and 11, 2018, Digital Grassroots participated in its first ever
Hackathon through the Mozilla Open Leaders program. We had been prepared for
the Mozilla Sprint since beginning the program in February and engaged in weekly
webinars to learn building a roadmap, creating a canvas, building persona’s, including
mentorships and meeting with experts in our respective field of Internet Governance.
#Mozsprint summed up all 14 weeks of preparation and Digital Grassroots hosted our Mozilla Global Sprint in
Nigeria, Kenya, and online.
The
Nigerian hub for Mozilla Sprint was courtesy of American Corner in Lagos and
hosted 38 participants on both days. In Kenya, we had 8 participants attend on the
first day, and given that Digital Grassroots features young leaders from 9
countries, we were hacking away online on Github.
Mozilla
Open Leaders was a game-changer for Digital Grassroots for many reasons.
Straight out of the Internet Governance Forum at the United Nations of Geneva
(UNOG) in December, 2017, the under-25 Internet Society youth@IGF fellows got
to work on a sustainable youth engagement network on Internet Governance, led
by Ms. Esther Mwema from Zambia, Digital Grassroots Founding President and
Mozilla Open Leader.
The goal was to create a sustainable bottom up approach to
build a healthier internet through digital inclusion. Thus, the Digital
Grassroots Ambassadors program was born – increasing the digital citizenship of
100 youth from 36 countries across the globe and reaching over 500 people in
local communities in cohort 1 alone. The Nigerian hub for Mozilla Global Sprint was coordinated by Digital Grassroot program manager Adisa Bolutife and two of our Ambassadors from cohort 1, John Madayese and Femi Gbolahan.
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MozSprint Hackathon at American Corner Nigeria |
The
first cohort of Digital Grassroots Ambassadors program was running simultaneously
with Mozilla Open Leaders. The program connected us to an intelligent, smart, and caring internet leader to be our Mozilla mentor, Ms. Renata
Aquino. Ms. Aquino built our network by inviting top industry experts in the Internet ecosystem. At the same time, Digital Grassroots Ambassadors program was also connecting our grassroots youth to industry experts for a 4 weeks mentorship. This was a prime parallel of working open, sharing resources and best
practices toward the development of a healthy internet with youth at the
pinnacle of that change.
Digital
Grassroots Co-founders Wathagi Ndungu (Vice President, Kenya), Adisa Bolutife
(Programs Manager, Nigeria), Noha Ashraf (Communications Manager, Egypt) were project leads in the Mozilla Open Leaders. Gaining these skills as a group
builds a ripple effect across the globe given our diversity in age, gender,
race, region, religion, and beliefs in Team DIGRA. Co-founders Rebecca Ryakitimbo (Country
Coordinator Tanzania) and Uffa Modey (Country Coordinator Nigeria) are also
Mozilla Open Leaders and this built our team work and cooperation even when we
live in different countries and timezones by using the internet as a focal point for progress.
Digital
Grassroots youth are leaders in their own respect beyond Digital Grassroots and
so Mozilla Open Leaders program went above and beyond building Digital
Grassroots to work better open, it also empowered us as young leaders in every
aspect of our journeys in leadership.
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Digital Grassroots works with youth to increase digital literacy for a better bottom up approach in Internet Governance. |
Mozilla Global Sprint proved to us that every person has a part to play no matter how young or old, experience or lack of, and most importantly, it fueled our creativity toward resolving issues in our community for sustainable development.
Wednesday nights will not be same again once we graduate this week. Thank you Mozilla and the wonderful cohort Cacti of Mozilla Open Leaders.
Great piece from wonderful organization. I am delighted to serve you as A Digital Grassroots Ambassador for Cohort 2
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