Tag Archives: Google Summer of Code

Get ready for Google Summer of Code 2023!

We are thrilled to announce the 2023 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program and share the timeline with you to get involved! 2023 will be our 19th consecutive year of hosting GSoC and we could not be more excited to welcome more organizations, mentors, and new contributors into the program.

With just three weeks left in the 2022 program, we had an exciting year with 958 GSoC contributors completing their projects with 198 open source organizations.

Our 2022 contributors and mentors have given us extensive feedback and we are keeping the big changes we made this year, with one adjustment around eligibility described below.
  • Increased flexibility in project lengths (10-22 weeks, not a set 12 weeks for everyone) allowed many people to be able to participate and to not feel rushed as they wrapped up their projects. We have 109 GSoC contributors wrapping up their projects over the next three weeks.
  • Choice of project time commitment there are now two options, medium at ~175 hours or large at ~350 hours, with 47% and 53% GSoC contributors, respectively.
  • Our most talked about change was GSoC being open to contributors new to open source software development (and not just to students anymore). For 2023, we are expanding the program to be open to students and to beginners in open source software development.
We are excited to launch the 2023 GSoC program and to continue to help grow the open source community. GSoC’s mission of bringing new contributors into open source communities is centered around mentorship and collaboration. We are so grateful for all the folks that continue to contribute, mentor, and get involved in open source communities year after year.

Interested in applying to the Google Summer of Code Program?

Open Source Organizations
Check out our website to learn what it means to be a participating organization. Watch our new GSoC Org Highlight videos and get inspired about projects that contributors have worked on in the past.

Think you have what it takes to participate as a mentor organization? Take a look through our mentor guide to learn about what it means to be part of Google Summer of Code, how to prepare your community, gather excited mentors, create achievable project ideas, and tips for applying. We welcome all types of open source organizations and encourage you to apply—it is especially exciting for us to welcome new orgs into the program and we hope you are inspired to get involved with our growing community.

Want to be a GSoC Contributor?
Are you new to open source development or a student? Are you eager to gain experience on real-world software development projects that will be used by thousands or millions of people? It is never too early to start thinking about what kind of open source organization you’d like to learn more about and how the application process works!

Watch our new ‘Introduction to GSoC’ video to see a quick overview of the program. Read through our contributor guide for important tips from past participants on preparing your proposal, what to think about if you wish to apply for the program, and everything you wanted to know about the program. We also hope you’re inspired by checking out the nearly 200 organizations that participated in 2022 and the 1,000+ projects that have been completed so far!

We encourage you to explore our website for other resources and continue to check for more information about the 2023 program.

You are welcome and encouraged to share information about the 2023 GSoC program with your friends, family, colleagues, and anyone you think may be interested in joining our community. We are excited to welcome many more contributors and mentoring organizations in the new year!

By Stephanie Taylor, Program Manager, and Perry Burnham, Associate Program Manager for the Google Open Source Programs Office

GSoC 2022 accepted Contributors announced!

May is here and we’re pleased to announce the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) Contributors for 2022. Our 196 mentoring organizations have spent the last few weeks making the difficult decisions on which applicants they will be mentoring this year as GSoC Contributors


Some notable results from this year’s application period
  • Over 4,000 applicants from 96 countries
  • 5,155 proposals submitted
  • 1,209 GSoC contributors accepted from 62 countries
  • 1,882 mentors and organization administrators

For the next few weeks our GSoC 2022 Contributors will be actively engaging with their new open source community and learning the ins and outs of how their new community works. Mentors will help guide them through the documentation and processes the community uses as well as helping the GSoC Contributors with planning their milestones and projects for the summer. This Community Bonding period helps familiarize the GSoC Contributors with the languages and tools they will need to successfully complete their projects. Coding begins June 13th and for most folks will wrap up September 5th, however this year GSoC Contributors can request a longer coding period wrapping up their projects by mid November.

Thank you to all the applicants who reached out to our mentoring organizations to learn more about the work they do and for the time they spent crafting their project proposals. We hope you all learned more about open source and maybe even found a community you want to contribute to even outside of GSoC. Staying connected with the community or reaching out to other organizations is a great way to set the stage for future opportunities. Open source communities are always looking for new, excited contributors to bring fresh perspectives and ideas to the table. We hope you connect with an open source community or apply to a future GSoC.

There are many changes to this 18th year of GSoC and we are excited to see how our GSoC Contributors and mentoring organizations take advantage of these adjustments. A big thank you to all our mentors and organization administrators who make this program so special.

GSoC Contributors—have fun this summer and keep learning! Your mentors and community members have dozens and in some cases, hundreds of years of experience, let them share their knowledge with you and help you become awesome open source contributors!

By Stephanie Taylor, Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2022: Contributor applications now open

Contributor applications for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2022 are now open!

Google Summer of Code is a global, online program focused on bringing new contributors into open source software development. GSoC contributors work with an open source organization on a 12+ week programming project under the guidance of mentors. 

Since 2005, GSoC has welcomed new developers into the open source community every year. The GSoC program has brought over 18,000 contributors from 112 countries together, with over 17,000 mentors from 746 open source organizations.

For 2022, GSoC made significant changes to expand the reach and flexibility of the program. The following are the key changes:
  • All newcomers and beginners to open source 18 years and older may now apply to GSoC
  • GSoC now supports both medium sized projects (~175 hours) and large projects (~350 hours)
  • Projects can be spread out over 10–22 weeks
We invite students, graduates, and folks at various stages of their career to check out Google Summer of Code. Now that applications are open, please keep a few helpful tips in mind:
  • Narrow down your list to 2-4 organizations and review their ideas list
  • Reach out to the organizations via their contact methods listed on the GSoC site
  • Engage with your organization early and often
Contributors may register and submit project proposals on the GSoC site from now until Tuesday, April 19th at 18:00 UTC.

Best of luck to all our applicants!

Romina Vicente, Program Manager – Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2022 mentoring orgs revealed!


After reviewing over 350 mentoring organization applications, we are excited to announce that 203 open source projects have been selected for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2022. This year we are welcoming 32 new organizations to mentor GSoC contributors.

Visit our new program site to view the complete list of GSoC 2022 accepted mentoring organizations. You can drill down into the details for each organization on their program page, including reading more about the project ideas they are looking for GSoC contributors to work on this year.

Are you a developer new to open source interested in participating in GSoC?
If you are a new or beginner open source contributor over 18 years old, we welcome you to apply for GSoC 2022! Contributor applications will open on Monday, April 4, 2022 at 18:00 UTC with Tuesday, April 19, 2022 18:00 UTC being the deadline to submit your application (which includes your project proposal).

The most successful applications come from students who start preparing now. We can’t say this enough—if you want to significantly increase your chances of being selected as a 2022 GSoC Contributor, we recommend you to prepare early. Below are some tips for prospective contributors to accomplish before the application period begins in early April:

  • Watch our short videos: What is GSoC? and Being a GSoC Contributor
  • Check out the Contributor/ Student Guide and Advice for Applying to GSoC doc.
  • Review the list of accepted organizations and find two to four that interest you and read through their Project Ideas lists.
  • When you see an idea that piques your interest, reach out to the organization via their preferred communication methods (listed on their org page on the GSoC program site).
  • Talk with the mentors and community to determine if this project idea is something you would enjoy working on during the program. Find a project that motivates you, otherwise it may be a challenging summer for you and your mentor.
  • Use the information you received during your communications with the mentors and other org community members to write up your proposal.
You can find more information about the program on our website which includes a full timeline of important dates. We also highly recommend reading the FAQ and Program Rules and watching some of our other videos with more details about GSoC for contributors and mentors.

A hearty welcome—and thank you—to all of our mentor organizations! We look forward to working with all of you during Google Summer of Code 2022.

By Stephanie Taylor – Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2022 mentoring orgs revealed!


After reviewing over 350 mentoring organization applications, we are excited to announce that 203 open source projects have been selected for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2022. This year we are welcoming 32 new organizations to mentor GSoC contributors.

Visit our new program site to view the complete list of GSoC 2022 accepted mentoring organizations. You can drill down into the details for each organization on their program page, including reading more about the project ideas they are looking for GSoC contributors to work on this year.

Are you a developer new to open source interested in participating in GSoC?
If you are a new or beginner open source contributor over 18 years old, we welcome you to apply for GSoC 2022! Contributor applications will open on Monday, April 4, 2022 at 18:00 UTC with Tuesday, April 19, 2022 18:00 UTC being the deadline to submit your application (which includes your project proposal).

The most successful applications come from students who start preparing now. We can’t say this enough—if you want to significantly increase your chances of being selected as a 2022 GSoC Contributor, we recommend you to prepare early. Below are some tips for prospective contributors to accomplish before the application period begins in early April:

  • Watch our short videos: What is GSoC? and Being a GSoC Contributor
  • Check out the Contributor/ Student Guide and Advice for Applying to GSoC doc.
  • Review the list of accepted organizations and find two to four that interest you and read through their Project Ideas lists.
  • When you see an idea that piques your interest, reach out to the organization via their preferred communication methods (listed on their org page on the GSoC program site).
  • Talk with the mentors and community to determine if this project idea is something you would enjoy working on during the program. Find a project that motivates you, otherwise it may be a challenging summer for you and your mentor.
  • Use the information you received during your communications with the mentors and other org community members to write up your proposal.
You can find more information about the program on our website which includes a full timeline of important dates. We also highly recommend reading the FAQ and Program Rules and watching some of our other videos with more details about GSoC for contributors and mentors.

A hearty welcome—and thank you—to all of our mentor organizations! We look forward to working with all of you during Google Summer of Code 2022.

By Stephanie Taylor – Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2022 is open for mentor organization applications!

We are excited to announce that open source projects and organizations can now apply to participate as mentoring organizations in the 2022 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program. Applications for organizations will close Monday, February 21 at 10am PT.

As 2022 begins, so does our 18th edition of Google Summer of Code! With our new updates to the program, we look forward to welcoming not just students, but new and beginner open source contributors over 18 years old into our GSoC community. With increased flexibility in the length of the projects—now offering 175 and 350-hour projects—and the ability to extend the program from the standard 12 weeks to 22 weeks, we hope to spur the interest of more potential GSoC contributors.

Does your open source project want to learn more about becoming a mentor organization? Visit the program site and read the mentor guide to learn what it means to be a mentoring organization and how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of excited mentors and well thought out project ideas!).

We welcome all types of organizations and are very eager to involve first-timers with a 2022 goal of welcoming 30+ new orgs into GSoC. We encourage new organizations to get a referral from experienced organizations that think they would be a good fit to participate in GSoC.

The open source projects that participate in GSoC as mentor organizations do all kinds of interesting work in security, cloud, development tools, science, medicine, data, and media for example. Projects can be relatively new (about 2 years old) to well established projects that started over 20 years ago. We welcome open source projects big and small and everything in between.

One thing to remember is that open source projects wishing to apply need to have a solid community. While you don’t have to have 50+ community members, the project also can’t have as few as 3 people; the goal of GSoC is to bring new contributors into communities and there should be an established community for them to join.

You can apply to be a mentor organization for GSoC starting today on the program site. The deadline to apply is February 21st at 10am PT. We will publicly announce the organizations chosen for GSoC 2022 on March 7th.

Please visit the program site for more information on how to apply and review the detailed timeline for important deadlines. We also encourage you to check out the Mentor Guide and our short video on why open source projects are excited to be a part of the GSoC program.

Good luck to all open source mentoring organization applicants!

By Stephanie Taylor, Google Open Source

Expanding Google Summer of Code in 2022

We are pleased to announce that in 2022 we’re broadening our scope of Google Summer of Code (GSoC) with exciting new updates to the program.

For 17 years, GSoC has focused on bringing new open source contributors into OSS communities big and small. GSoC has brought over 18,000 university students from 112 countries together with over 17K mentors from 746 open source organizations.

At its heart, GSoC is a mentorship program where people interested in learning more about open source are welcomed into our open source communities by excited mentors ready to help them learn and grow as developers. The goal is to have these new contributors stay involved in open source communities long after their Google Summer of Code program is over.

Over the course of GSoC’s 17 years, open source has grown and evolved, and we’ve realized that the program needs to evolve as well. With that in mind, we have several major updates to the program coming in 2022, aimed at better meeting the needs of our open source communities and providing more flexibility to both projects and contributors so that people from all walks of life can find, join and contribute to great open source communities.

Expanding eligibility

Beginning in 2022, we are opening the program up to all newcomers of open source that are 18 years and older. The program will no longer be solely focused on university students or recent graduates. We realize there are many folks that could benefit from the GSoC program that are at various stages of their career, recent career changers, self-taught, those returning to the workforce, etc. so we wanted to allow these folks the opportunity to participate in GSoC.

We expect many students to continue applying to the program (which we encourage!), yet we wanted to provide excited individuals who want to get into open source—but weren’t sure how to get started or whether open source communities would welcome their newbie contributions—with a place to start.

Many people can benefit from mentorship programs like GSoC and we want to welcome more folks into open source.

Multiple Sizes of Projects

This year we introduced the concept of a medium sized project in response to the many distractions folks were dealing with during the pandemic. This adjustment was beneficial for many participants and organizations but we also heard feedback that the larger, more complex projects were a better fit for others. In the spirit of flexibility, we are going to support both medium sized projects (~175 hours) and large projects (~350 hours) in 2022.

One of our goals is to find ways to get more people from different backgrounds into open source which means meeting people where they are at and understanding that not everyone can devote an entire summer to coding.

Increased Flexibility of Timing for Projects

For 2022, we are allowing for considerable flexibility in the timing for the program. You can spread the project out over a longer period of time and you can even switch to a longer timeframe mid-program if life happens. Rather than a mandatory 12-week program that runs from June – August with everyone required to finish their projects by the end of the 12th week, we are opening it up so mentors and their GSoC Contributors can decide together if they want to extend the deadline for the project up to 22 weeks.
Image with text reads 'Google Summer of Code'

Interested in Applying to GSoC?

We will announce the GSoC 2022 program timeline soon.

Open Source Organizations

Does your open source project want to learn more about how to apply to be a mentoring organization? This is a mentorship program focused on welcoming new contributors into your community and helping them learn best practices that will help them be long term OSS contributors. A key factor is having plenty of mentors excited about teaching newcomers about open source.

Read the mentor guide, to learn more about what it means to be a mentor organization, how to prepare your community, creating appropriate project ideas (175 hour and 350 hour projects), and tips for preparing your application.

Want to be a GSoC Contributor?

Are you a potential GSoC Contributor interested in learning how to prepare for the 2022 GSoC program? It’s never too early to start thinking about your proposal or about what type of open source organization you may want to work with. Read through the student/contributor guide for important tips on preparing your proposal and what to consider if you wish to apply for the program in 2022. You can also get inspired by checking out the 199 organizations that participated in Google Summer of Code 2021, as well as the projects that students worked on.

We encourage you to explore other resources and you can learn more on the program website.

Please spread the word to your friends as we hope these updates to the program will help more excited folks apply to be GSoC Contributors and mentoring organizations in GSoC 2022!


By Stephanie Taylor, Program Manager, Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2021: Results announced!

In 2021, our global online program, Google Summer of Code (GSoC), focused on bringing more student developers into open source for 10 weeks from June to August, concluding yesterday, on August 30th with the final mentor evaluations of their students. We are pleased to announce that 1,205 students from 67 countries have successfully completed this year’s program. There were also 199 open source organizations and over 2,100 mentors, from 75 countries, that took part in the program. Congratulations to all students and mentors who completed GSoC 2021!

The final step of each GSoC program is the student and mentor evaluations.These help us gain valuable insights from our participants about the impact of the program. Here are some results from this year’s evaluations:
  • 96% of students think that GSoC helped their programming skills
  • 99% of students would recommend their GSoC mentors
  • 94% of students will continue working with their GSoC organization
  • 99% of students plan to continue working on open source
  • 36% of students said GSoC has already helped them get a job or internship
  • 72% of students said they would consider being a mentor
  • 88% of students said they would apply to GSoC again
Evaluations also give students and mentors the opportunity to give suggestions to GSoC program administrators. In past evaluations, a number of students have requested a ‘Student Summit’ in order to help connect their GSoC experience with the wider open source community.

We’re proud to announce that this year we held our first GSoC Student Summit on August 27th. Over 275 students attended the virtual summit! The goal of the Student Summit was to inspire and inform our 2021 students. We included talks from Googlers, GSoC mentors and former students who shared their personal and professional path to GSoC and open source. Students were also able to ask the presenters questions and even participate in trivia games to win prizes! More importantly, the summit was a place and time where students from around the world could come together and celebrate their GSoC accomplishments. Inspired by what they learned from the summit, the students know that while their GSoC time has ended their open source journey has just begun.

By Romina Vicente, Project Coordinator for the Google Open Source Programs Office

Google Summer of Code 2021: Mentor Stats

The global, online program, Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2021, kicked off in May when 1,289 student developers were paired with mentors from 199 open source organizations to work on a programming project for 10 weeks.

This year we have 2,143 mentors assigned to student projects. Our mentors represent 75 countries from around the world and are a mix of past GSoC students, former Google Code-in mentors, long-time mentors and of course, new mentors.

Google Summer of Code logo

Here are more mentor statistics to check out.

Top 10 countries with the most mentors in 2021 are:

Country

Mentors

United States

554

India

302

Germany

185

United Kingdom

152

France

93

Spain

72

Switzerland

62

Canada

61

Russian Federation

49

Australia

45

  • Mentors who have participated in GSoC for 10 or more years: 80 (4%)
  • Mentors who have been a part of GSoC for 5 years or more: 211 (10%)
  • Mentors that are former GSoC students: 530 (25%)
  • Mentors that have also been involved in the Google Code-in program: 343 (16%)
  • First time GSoC mentors: 294 (14%)
Before coding began, students and mentors were introduced during the community bonding period. Together they spent a month planning their projects and milestones while students also learned about their mentor organization. During the program students gain real world experience, make connections in their newfound community, and create code that is beneficial to all. After the program ends some students decide to become mentors themselves or continue to contribute to their GSoC organization, while some blaze their own open source path. By sharing their experiences and know-how with their students, our awesome mentors represent the many possibilities within open source and in turn, continue to help build a healthy, diverse open source community.

A big ‘thank you’ to all our dedicated and enthusiastic GSoC mentors who continue to inspire our students year after year!

By Romina Vicente, Project Coordinator for the Google Open Source Programs Office