Even though it’s late to post about the event, events like SFD can never go unnoticed. I have never seen any Open Source event in Mumbai as well planned as SFD 2015. Many dignitaries within India and abroad extended their support in terms of sessions and/or sponsorships to the event. Mozilla was a part of such a grand event right from the planning stage. I had been in touch with Mr. Purvesh Shah, the organizer and owner of startup named ‘Idiotic Ideas’, since few months. The event was scheduled on September 19 at Directiplex, Andheri and included various sessions, out of which two were by Mozilla.
On the day of the event, it was very much exciting to see around 150 people marking their presence. Few of my VJTI colleagues also turned up, adding to my happiness. The audience consisted of students and working professionals. The event started with my session on Firefox OS Security. Last year in SFD, I had introduced Firefox OS to the attendees. This year, I planned to take it to a more specific level, hence Firefox OS security.
Topics I covered:
- Self-introduction and journey in Mozilla
- Introduction to FxOS, the motivation behind its launch and how it brings web to mobile. I explained its advantage to both developers (who require openness, can develop apps just with web development knowledge) and consumers (who get device with nominal features at minimum price).
- FxOS architecture and Web APIs
- Steps for app building and publishing on Marketplace
- Pros and Cons of Firefox in comparison with other browsers
- Security aspects in Firefox OS: App vetting, permission system, sandboxing
- Pros and Cons of Firefox OS in comparison with Android and iOS
- Ongoing security projects in fxOS
- Appeal to everyone to extend their contributions to open source projects
I also introduced the VJTI tech-club members to the attendees. After my session, Nikhil Malankar (founder of Gameeon) took over and taught how we can build a game within few minutes. Then was the session of Sachin Dedhia (founder of Skynet solutions) who introduced many new hacking technologies. During lunch time, I had a good discussion with astute personalities of GNUKhata and Hamara Linux team. I purchased a Marathi version of a book compiled by Prof. Arun Kelkar which how open source came into existence.
After the lunch was the keynote session by Nagarjuna (president of FOSS, India) which was followed by Krishnakant Mane and Arun Kelkar who demonstrated GNUKhata and also explained its use in accounting arenas. KK Sir also conducted a session on Orca (Orca works with applications and toolkits that support the AT-SPI).
Rahul Kanojia, founder of Diplomads, conducted a session on “Importance of Contributing to open source”. It was mainly for students pursuing their graduation. We all were requested to narrate our experience and journey in Open Source. The final session was by Chandan Baba on Suggested Tiles. Mozilla Suggested Tiles offer sponsored placement in a designated interest category. Then was the closing note by Purvesh who felicitated all the speakers and those who helped immensely in making the event a successful one.
SFD 2015 helped me in presenting Mozilla on a very large scale. Events like these help in spreading the open source concept and also help all the techies to get in touch with developers and entrepreneurs. I thank all the communities who extended their support to the event, students and professionals who spent their entire holiday for SFD and organizers who came up with this idea. Looking forward to be a part of such grand events in future.
AMoz Narvekar 
Thank you Amod from VJTI tech club. Our small meeting with legendary Krishnkanth was real inspiration for me. All the best to you in all your future endeavours.