Hello Mozillians,
It’s been a busy month or so since I last posted about the opening of the Tech Speakers Phase 2 summer pilot. This update is overdue, and thanks to everyone who called me on it! 
You know who you are.
The Tech Speakers team reviewed applications and selected 41 volunteer Mozillians from 17 countries to participate in Phase 2 of the program. In this iteration of the program we are running a series of 3 expert talks, which we call Masterclasses, every other week. Our second masterclass aired on August 1, and our first masterclass, The Art of Public Speaking, is now publicly available for everyone who wants to view it and share it. It is also downloadable (scroll down to the bottom of the page to view the Download link).
https://air.mozilla.org/jen-simmons-on-the-art-of-public-speaking/
We will have two more masterclasses - we will publish our second, How to Fire Up An Audience, towards the end of August (timed with the launch of a new advocacy campaign). The third masterclass will air to the public in early September. Stay tuned!
On the weeks we don’t have masterclasses, we have Labs. Labs are speaking practice sessions that take place over vidyo, where participants present to each other on pre-assigned topics and share constructive feedback. The sessions are led by fellow Tech Speakers from earlier iterations of the program. In this phase of the program, we have grouped people as best we could by timezone and region.
At the end of the Summer Pilot, participants who have attended and actively participated in the scheduled sessions will join the current cohort of Tech Speakers, and will be eligible to request Tech Speaker funding to present and participate in local and regional conferences, meetups, workshops, and events for developers.
We will offer another Tech Speakers Phase 2 pilot early in 2017. We will announce the dates and open the application process for 2017 in the fourth quarter of 2016, after Mozfest. If you are interested in applying, please follow this Discourse topic and you won’t miss the news! We will probably run a longer Pilot with more Masterclasses, depending on the feedback we receive from current participants and facilitators.
Big thanks to all the participants for their energy and commitment, and especially to all you Tech Speakers who are currently leading Labs groups and bringing the Tech Speakers program to your local communities! We’re here because you’re here! If you have any details to add, please add to this thread.
Thanks everyone for your interest and support!
Havi
