The Mozilla Blog

Thank you to each and everyone of you who participated in and helped promote Mozilla Service Week!    The Mozilla community didn’t disappoint – thousands of you got out, and made a difference in our communities and the Web. Kudos to all!

Now it’s time to see how we did.  Please take a moment to report your hours and share your stories by Sept. 25th (we’ll start displaying completed hours on our site tomorrow). We’re throwing in a little memento for those that do this!

Wondering what’s next?  Today is OneWebDay, a global celebration of the Web — which is a wonderful way to wrap up Mozilla Service Week!  Here’s how to celebrate:

• Print and share an ‘I love the web poster’. Or change your twitter of Facebook pic! Create a global wave that shows the Web is a precious public resource.
• Conduct an Internet Health Check. Find computers with Internet Explorer 6, and upgrade them to a more secure browser.
• Find a OneWebDay party or celebration near you!
• Donate to OneWebDay. Every time you donate, Mozilla will too.

Thanks for making a difference this week!  We’re hoping the spirit lives on all year long.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Anne Frank

Today marks the last day of Mozilla Service Week.  We hope you’ve had an amazing time this past week, getting out in your communities and helping organizations and individuals better use the Web.  You don’t have to miss out on Mozilla Service Week — there’s still plenty to do!

• On your lunch hour or after work host a Web help desk at a local cafe, at your company or at school.  All you need is a laptop,  a sign and wireless wireless!
• Conduct an Internet Health Audit for a few friends or colleagues.  We’ve made the audit even easier, just visit our Health Check page and you’ll know if you need to update your browser.
• Find a service opportunity on Idealist.org or on Betterplace.org (if you’re in Germany) and start helping a non-profit when you have the time. You can also scroll through some of the stories and projects posted on the Mozilla Service Week website.

If you need some inspiration check out how other community members have heeded the call:

• Nipon Haque of India has set up a website for the The Uttar Banga Anath Ashram orphanage.  The founder Uma Mallick scrapes by to care for, feed and educate 28 girls.  Anjan Kumar Das, one of their supporters, felt the need for a  website to raise funds and awareness for this cause.  Great work!
• Joe McLaughlin has helped bring the Millvale Library (near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) to life by refurbishing computers and getting the library online.  Nice job!
• Abhinav Kishhore of India has taken the Web help desk idea online,  creating a help request form.  He’s volunteering to follow up and help you with your specific tech needs!  Creative take on the Web help desk.

Have a great last day of Mozilla Service Week and get ready to celebrate OneWebDay on September 22nd!

Yale Students for Free Culture help spread the word about the Open Web for Mozilla Service Week

We’ve just got three days left of Mozilla Service Week. It’s not too late to help!  Let’s take this weekend to get out and show people how to use the Web.  It’s easy — all you need is a sign, your laptop and a venue with wireless and you’re an instant Web help desk!

This week isn’t just about helping people better use the Web, but about celebrating as well.  That’s why we’ve paired up with OneWebDay to wrap up Mozilla Service Week.  OneWebDay is like Earth Day for the Internet. It’s a chance to celebrate the awesomeness of the Web, and make it better.

Here’s how you can celebrate your hardwork this week and the Web in general:

• Print and share an ‘I love the web poster’. Create a global wave that shows the web is a precious public resource.
• Conduct an Internet Health Check. Find computers with Internet Explorer 6, and upgrade them to a more secure browser.
• Find a OneWebDay party or celebration near you!
• Donate to OneWebDay. Every time you donate, Mozilla will too.

Have fun meeting and connecting with the other people that care about the Web.  And, as a gentle reminder, please share your stories and hours on Mozilla Service Week!

Its day 3 of Mozilla Service Week, and already so many of you have been making a big difference. We’re now past 11,000 hours of pledged support, with so many great volunteer opportunities and projects posted. We wanted to share a few of those today:

* Urban Sprouts based in San Francisco, USA is looking for a volunteer web designer and CSS/HTML web developer to update their blog. They run a school garden program that serves low-income youth from under-served neighborhoods, teaching and sharing eco-literacy, wellness, and community.

* The BBC have teamed up Find Your Feet in the UK, a charity working with vulnerable families living in rural India and Malawi. They are helping Find Your Feet with redesigning their website, and offering some guidance using social media, plus lots more.

* andrewl is supporting livinghome.org in Minnesota, who enable seniors to remain living in the home of their choice. He’ll be improving their website and producing a short video, so more people get to know about livinghome.org, and help find new volunteers.

* www.breadforthecity.org are looking for help to bring their existing blog site together with their website. Bread for the City provides  assistance to Washington DC’s poorest residents and write daily about the problems of poverty and potential solutions.

You can read about more offers of support and asks for help at the service week Stories and Inspiration area.

There are still so many ways you can get involved with Mozilla Service Week this week. Visit Idealist.org and view opportunities by country and region, and if you’re in Germany please see projects which need help at Betterplace.org. You can also scroll through some of the stories and projects posted on the Mozilla Service Week website.

Thanks for your support, and please know that no matter how big or small your act of good – you are making a big difference.

We’re kicking off Mozilla Service Week today with a bang:  we’re close to 10,000 volunteer hours, over 3,500 volunteer opportunities and the site is now available in 10 languages, including recently added Portuguese, Romanian and Catalan.  The Friends of Mozilla Service Week have also done an outstanding job raising awareness about our initiative, and we’re thrilled to announce that All for Good and Google have also signed on as friends.

There is literally an opportunity for everyone — whether you are a coder, writer, designer, social media maven, network guru or just plain love the Web.  So let’s roll up our sleeves and help organizations and people all over the world experience the joy of using the Web! If you still need a service opportunity, we’ve got one from you:

• Choose from a list of over 3,500 service opportunities on our partner sites (Idealist & betterplace.org).  There is a plethora of opportunities, including helping The Nature Conservancy of Chicago, IL with its photo archive, developing a LinkedIn group for Wardrobe for Opportunity in Oakland, CA, helping CARE, Germany’s largest NPO, develop a facebook app to send virtual CARE packages, and keeping Mexico’s Puente a la Salud Comunitaria’s website up-to-date.  Our partner OneWebDay also has a variety of service events taking place on and around Sept. 22nd, including a number of events in San Francisco.
• Join a challenge!  We’re looking to get a 100 people to conduct an “Internet Health Check” and host a Web help desk, and at least 50 people to host a social media seminar!
• Do it your way!  Find an organization that needs help or create your own event.  Long-time Mozilla community Ken Saunders reached out to Tutors for All and is volunteering to redesign their website, while Yale’s Free Culture Club is hosting an educational event on Free and Open Source Software.

Remember to register, pledge and report your hours, and help us keep track of all the Mozilla Service Week goodness by tagging posts on delicious and photos on flickr with “mozservice09″.  For added inspiration join our very first twitter chat today at 9 a.m. PDT – 10:30 a.m. PDT.

Have fun and make a difference this week!

Kick off Mozilla Service Week by joining in the MozService09 Twitter chat!

Mozilla is hosting a Twitter chat on Monday, September 14, at 9am Pacific (that’s noon Eastern time, 5pm London time, 9:30pm in India) and will go for about an hour and a half.

Joining the chat will be Mark Surman, Chelsea Novak, Mary Colvig and Jane Finette of Mozilla and Nathaniel James of OneWebDay.  In addition, many of our Friends and Partners will take part.

Here’s how to participate:

• Log on to Twitter from 9 a.m. PDT – 10:30 PDT on Sept. 14th.
• Search for the hashtag #MozService09 using a real-time Twitter search site (such as TweetChat, Twitterfall, or WTH.
• Join in! Ask (or answer) a question, and mark it with #MozService09 so that your tweet will be part of the conversation.
• Rock a Twibbon to show your support.

Here are the topics we’ll be covering (all times below are Pacific):

• 9:00am – 9:30am:  How can the Internet enrich the lives of people and communities?
• 9:30am – 10:00am: What is Mozilla Service Week and OneWebDay? How can one get involved?
• 10:00am – 10:30am: What are you doing or  have you done to enrich the lives of people and communities using technology? How are you getting involved with Mozilla Service Week and OneWebDay?

We look forward to celebrating the start of Mozilla Service Week with you!  See you on Twitter.

As mentioned earlier, Mozilla Service Week has partnered with OneWebDay to celebrate the Web and wrap up our week of service.  Learn more about OneWebDay from Chelsea Novak’s blog post below:

OneWebDay is a chance to reflect on how amazing the Web is and to think about how we can move it forward, making it awesome for everyone. It’s held annually on September 22, landing it on a Tuesday this year.

The web has a profound effect on how we live and work. As a OneWebDay partner, Mozilla and Mozilla Service Week want you take action, volunteer your time and help keep the Web awesome. Mozilla Service Week was created with the goal of helping not-for-profit organizations in need. OneWebDay is a great opportunity to extend those good deeds to anyone who could use a hand experiencing a better web. Everyone can help, the only requirement is to simply love the web.

So do you want to be counted amongst the millions of people who love the web and find their lives enriched by the way the web allows you to share, communicate, work or play? The ways you can contribute are only limited by your imagination, but we have a few suggestions to help you out if you’re pressed for time:

• Donate to OneWebDay. OneWebDay is organized by one, full-time, staff member and an army of volunteers. With your support, OneWebDay activities can be expanded to include more international locales and improved with better resources.
• Take action and perform an Internet Health Check. One of the ways Mozilla is supporting OneWebDay is by suggesting activities that are easy to do and make the Web better. Perform an Internet Health Check by updating less technically-savvy users to a modern browser. At the same time, update plugins like Flash, Java and Quicktime and help others keep their computers and the Internet healthy.
• Organize or attend a OneWebDay Event in your town! There will be OneWebDay parties, rallies and service activities taking place all over the world. If you don’t see one happening near you, organize your own. Have a look at what we’re planning here in Toronto if you need further inspiration (a party, a screening and a drop off for older computers for people in need).
• Donate your Twitter or Facebook status on September 22 and follow @owd on Twitter. It’s easy to do and can have more impact than you know.

Some other great ideas have cropped up in the comments of Mark’s OneWebDay blog post as well as some fun ways to show your OneWebDay love around your school or office.

Start getting ready. OneWebDay is less than three weeks away!

We’re now just 11 days from the start of Mozilla Service Week and momentum continues to build!  The community has stepped up to pledge over 7,300 hours of service and our localization community just rolled out the Korean, Polish and Shqip versions of mozillaservice.org.  We also now have volunteer opportunities posted in 79 countries.  Great work everyone!

While showing people how to better use the Web is fun, throwing in a challenge or a little competition makes it even more fun!  We’ve set up “service challenges” or dares on PledgeBank to inspire more participation:

• Social Media Seminars: Put your experience on Facebook & twitter to good use and teach NPOs how to connect with their community, donors and the general public – for free!  We’re calling for at least 50 of these sessions!
• Host  your own Web Q&A session: Channel your inner Lucy from Charlie Brown and set up shop at a library, coffee shop and Internet cafe.  Offer  to answer questions and show folks how to use the Web.  We’ve even created a flyer for you to attach to your computer showing you’re a volunteer.  Help us rally 100 people to do this!
• Conduct Internet Health Checks: Volunteer your time and perform Internet Health Checks on computers owned by people or organizations that need your help to be safe online.  Just follow four easy steps to make sure your friends, classmates, a NPO, etc are safe on the Web. We’d love for at least 100 people to sign up!

Join one of our challenges and remember to pledge your hours on the Mozilla Service Week site!