Sad news, exciting beginnings: This Friday will officially be my last day working at Mozilla in Vancouver.

This is where the sad part comes in. I’ve had a truly amazing year being back home in Vancouver, and it is very hard to leave. The two years I spent working on Mozilla’s Webmaker project in London and in Vancouver were fascinating, challenging and fun. In every project, from Community Literacies to Hive Vancouver, and from teaching the web to starting #ARTOFWEB, I found myself continually amazed at the passion and talent of the Mozilla employees and community members I was fortunate enough to hack with, create with, laugh with and break the Internetz with.

And now, the exciting part. In a few weeks, I’m moving back to London for a few more European adventures before a return to my first love, radical research - much of it inspired by the open tech communities I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of over the past few years. This autumn, I’ll start doctoral research in the UK to examine the creative roles that hacker cultures are playing at shared machine shops (from makerspaces to tech studios) which are now emerging in cultural heritage institutions in Canada, the UK and the Netherlands.

Until then, I’m looking forward to going back into consulting. I’m open to taking on small contracts with value-based projects that aim to make the world a better place, so if you need help with web development, curriculum design, participatory research or community curation, please get in touch via @codekat on Twitter.

London, I’ll see you (and dance to your music) very soon. And Vancouver, my love, I’ll always be around. I’ll continue serving as Education Co-chair on the Maker Foundation Board of Directors, and from our first Maker Education Salon of 2015 this March to Mini Maker Faire this summer, there’s a already lot to look forward to this year, international borders be damned! I’m very excited for the crazy new ideas and community-led developments yet to come.

http://blog.codekat.net/post/110080120234