So if you’re a university student looking to earn real-world experience this summer, we hope you’ll consider coding for a cool open source project with Google Summer of Code. We’re celebrating the 10th year of the program in 2014, and we’d love to see more student applicants than ever before. In 2013 we accepted almost 1,200 students and we’re planning to accept 10 percent more this year.
You can submit proposals on our website starting now through Friday, March 21 at 12:00pm PDT. Get started by reviewing the ideas pages of the 190 open source projects in this year’s program, and decide which projects you’re interested in. There are a limited number of spots, and writing a great project proposal is essential to being selected to the program—so be sure to check out the Student Manual for advice. For ongoing information throughout the application period and beyond, see the Google Open Source blog.
Good luck to all the open source coders out there, and remember to submit your proposals early—you only have until March 21 to apply!
To celebrate the previous nine years of student contributions and set the stage for the best Google Summer of Code yet, we’re launching 10 things to make the program better than ever. Here’s a peek at what we’ll be up to, stay tuned to the Open Source blog for updates:
We’re planning 10 visits to countries with the highest participation throughout the year to promote the program and celebrate local students and mentors.
A 10 percent increase in the student stipend, bringing the amount to $5,500.
We’re also accepting 10 percent more students than ever before—more than 1,300 students will spend their summer coding as part of the program next year
A 10-year reunion mentor summit held at Google’s Mountain View campus for our Google Summer of Code organization alumni.
We’re excited to be running a program that touches a lot of lives around the world every year, and we want to celebrate all of the accomplishments we’ve seen from our participants.
We’re also committed to getting younger students involved in open source software. For the fourth consecutive year, in November we’ll run Google Code-in, an international contest designed to introduce 13-17 year old students to the world of open source development. You don’t have to be a coder to get involved in this contest; there are a variety of ways students can contribute to open source projects.
Each year, open source software is becoming more important to governments and industries such as healthcare, gaming and technology. We believe that investing in youth and open source will improve both technology and society. Applications for Google Summer of Code open in March and students interested in Google Code-in can apply starting November 18. See our Open Source blog post for more details on both programs. Here’s to the next year in open source!
Posted by Carol Smith, Open Source Programs Office
Over the past eight years more than 6,000 students have “graduated” from this global program, working with almost 400 different open source projects. Students who are accepted into the program will put the skills they have learned in university to good use by working on an actual software project over the summer. Students are paired with mentors to help address technical questions and concerns throughout the course of the project. With the knowledge and hands-on experience students gain during the summer they strengthen their future employment opportunities in fields related to their academic pursuits. Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all.
Interested students can submit proposals on the website starting now through Friday, May 3 at 12:00pm PDT. Get started by reviewing the ideas pages of the 177 open source projects in this year’s program, and decide which projects you’re interested in. Because Google Summer of Code has a limited number of spots for students, writing a great project proposal is essential to being selected to the program—be sure to check out the Student Manual for advice.
For ongoing information throughout the application period and beyond, see the Google Open Source blog, join our Summer of Code mailing lists or join us on Internet relay chat at #gsoc on Freenode.
Good luck to all the open source coders out there, and remember to submit your proposals early—you only have until May 3 to apply!
Starting Monday, November 26 and for the following 50 days, contest participants will work on fun online tasks for 10 different open source organizations. Possible challenges include documentation, marketing outreach, software coding, user experience research and more.
Participants earn points for each task they successfully complete and can earn prizes like T-shirts and certificates of completion. This year we’re doubling the number of grand prize winners to 20 talented students, who will win a trip to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. They’ll spend a day getting a tour of the “Googleplex,” meeting and talking with Google engineers, plus enjoy another full day exploring San Francisco and other surprises.
Some of the 2011 Google Code-in Grand Prize Winners by the Golden Gate Bridge
Last year, 542 students from 56 countries and 360 schools completed 3,054 tasks during the eight-week contest. This year we want to encourage even more students to participate in the contest and learn about open source development. If you’d like to sign up, please review our Frequently Asked Questions and the contest rules on our program site. You can also watch our screencast, check out some sample tasks from last year’s contest and join our discussion list for any other questions. For details on important dates for the contest, see the timeline. You can register for your account on the program site when the contest opens on Monday, November 26 at 9:00am PST.
Finally, our Open Source Programs team will be hosting a Hangout on Air on the Google in Education page November 26 at 2:00pm PST to discuss the details of the Google Code-in contest and answer any questions.
We hope you’ll spend your winter (or summer, for our friends in the southern hemisphere) learning about the ins and outs of open source development through hands-on experience. Ready...set...
Google Summer of Code is a highly competitive program with a limited number of spots. Students should consult the Google Summer of Code student manual for suggestions on how to write a quality proposal that will grab the attention of the mentoring organizations. Multiple proposals are allowed but we highly recommend focusing on quality over quantity. The mentoring organizations have many proposals to review, so it is important to follow each organization’s specific guidelines or templates and we advise you to submit your proposal early so you can receive timely feedback.
To learn more about Google Summer of Code, tune in to the Google Students page on Google+ next Monday, April 2 at 3:30pm PT for a Hangout on Air with open source programs manager Chris DiBona. He'll be talking about Google Summer of Code with other members of the open source team at Google. Submit your questions about the program between now and next Monday using the hashtag #gsochangout, and Chris and the open source team will answer them live during the Hangout On Air.
Good luck to all the open source coders out there, and remember to submit your proposals early—you only have until April 6!
Last year’s Google Code-in had 361 students from 48 countries completing 2,167 tasks over the course of the the eight-week contest. We hope to have even more students participate this year. Help us spread the word by telling your friends, classmates, children, colleagues, teachers—everyone!
If you’d like to sign up, please review our Frequently Asked Questions and the contest rules on our program site. You can also join our discussion list for any other questions. For details on important dates for the contest, see the timeline. You can go ahead and register for your account now on the program site so you will be able to start claiming tasks right away when the contest opens on Monday, November 21 at 12:00am (midnight) PST.
We hope you’ll spend your winter (or summer, for our friends in the southern hemisphere) learning about the ins and outs of open-source development through hands-on experience. On your marks...
The RHoK community has already developed some applications focused on crisis response such as I’mOK, a mobile messaging application for disaster response that was used on the ground in Haiti and Chile; and CHASM, a visual tool to map landslide risk currently being piloted by the World Bank in landslide affected areas in the Caribbean. Person Finder, a tool created by Google’s crisis response team to help people find friends and loved ones after a natural disaster, was also refined at RHoK events and effectively deployed in Haiti, Chile and Japan.
We’re inviting all developers, designers and anyone else who wants to help “hack for humanity,” to attend one of the local events on June 4-5. There, you’ll meet other open source developers, work with experts in disaster and climate issues and contribute code to exciting projects that make a difference. If you’re in Northern California, come join us at the Silicon Valley RHoK event at Google headquarters.
And if you’re part of an organization that works in the fields of crisis response or climate change, you can submit a problem definition online, so that developers and volunteers can work on developing technology to address the challenge.
Visit http://www.rhok.org/ for more information and to sign up for your local event, and get set to put your hacking skills to good use.
At Google we're inspired by efforts to connect people to the political process, to useful public information and to their governments — and we're eager to participate. To hear more about the different kinds of bottom-up change proposed at Transparency Camp, head to the Google Open Source blog for a summary by Clay Johnson from the Sunlight Foundation.
This and previous photo courtesy of Heather Bussing
Posted by Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager
Chosen from more than 350 students worldwide, our winners created software, documentation and marketing materials for ten different open source projects, getting all this work accomplished in just over two months. For more details, including interviews with the winners and their mentors, check out the Google Open Source Blog.
Posted by Leslie Hawthorn, Program Manager - Open Source
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