Tag Archives: mentors

Finding courage and inspiration in the developer community

Posted by Monika Janota

How do we empower women in tech and equip them with the skills to help them become true leaders? One way is learning from others' successes and failures. Web GDEs—Debbie O'Brien, Julia Miocene, and Glafira Zhur—discuss the value of one to one mentoring and the impact it has made on their own professional and personal development.

A 2019 study showed that only 25% of keynote speakers at tech events are women, meanwhile 70% of female speakers mentioned being the only woman on a conference panel. One way of changing that is by running programs and workshops with the aim of empowering women and providing them with the relevant soft skills training, including public speaking, content creation, and leadership. Among such programs are the Women Developer Academy (WDA) and the Road to GDE, both run by Google's developer communities.

With more than 1000 graduates around the world, WDA is a program run by Women Techmakers for professional IT practitioners. To equip women in tech with speaking and presentation skills, along with confidence and courage, training sessions, workshops, and mentoring meetings are organized. Road to GDE, on the other hand, is a three-month mentoring program created to support people from historically underrepresented groups in tech on their path to becoming experts. What makes both programs special is the fact that they're based on a unique connection between mentor and mentee, direct knowledge sharing, and an individualized approach.

Photo of Julia Miocene speaking at a conference Julia Miocene

Some Web GDE community members have had a chance to be part of the mentoring programs for women as both mentors and mentees. Frontend developers Julia Miocene and Glafira Zhur are relatively new to the GDE program. They became Google Developers Experts in October 2021 and January 2022 respectively, after graduating from the first edition of both the Women Developer Academy and the Road to GDE; whilst Debbie O'Brien has been a member of the community and an active mentor for both programs for several years. They have all shared their experiences with the programs in order to encourage other women in tech to believe in themselves, take a chance, and to become true leaders.

Different paths, one goal

Although all three share an interest in frontend development, each has followed a very different path. Glafira Zhur, now a team leader with 12 years of professional experience, originally planned to become a musician, but decided to follow her other passion instead. A technology fan thanks to her father, she was able to reinstall Windows at the age of 11. Julia Miocene, after more than ten years in product design, was really passionate about CSS. She became a GDE because she wanted to work with Chrome and DevTools. Debbie is a Developer Advocate working in the frontend area, with a strong passion for user experience and performance. For her, mentoring is a way of giving back to the community, helping other people achieve their dreams, and become the programmers they want to be. At one point while learning JavaScript, she was so discouraged she wanted to give it up, but her mentor convinced her she could be successful. Now she's returning the favor.

Photo of Debbie O'Brien and another woman in a room smiling at the camera

Debbie O'Brien

As GDEs, Debbie, Glafira, and Julia all mention that the most valuable part of becoming experts is the chance to meet people with similar interests in technology, to network, and to provide early feedback for the web team. Mentoring, on the other hand, enables them to create, it boosts their confidence and empowers them to share their skills and knowledge—regardless of whether they're a mentor or a mentee.

Sharing knowledge

A huge part of being a mentee in Google's programs is learning how to share knowledge with other developers and help them in the most effective way. Many WDA and Road to GDE participants become mentors themselves. According to Julia, it's important to remember that a mentor is not a teacher—they are much more. The aim of mentoring, she says, is to create something together, whether it's an idea, a lasting connection, a piece of knowledge, or a plan for the future.

Glafira mentioned that she learned to perceive social media in a new way—as a hub for sharing knowledge, no matter how small the piece of advice might seem. It's because, she says, even the shortest Tweet may help someone who's stuck on a technical issue that they might not be able to resolve without such content being available online. Every piece of knowledge is valuable. Glafira adds that, "Social media is now my tool, I can use it to inspire people, invite them to join the activities I organize. It's not only about sharing rough knowledge, but also my energy."

Working with mentors who have successfully built an audience for their own channels allows the participants to learn more about the technical aspects of content creation—how to choose topics that might be interesting for readers, set up the lighting in the studio, or prepare an engaging conference speech.

Learning while teaching

From the other side of the mentor—mentee relationship, Debbie O'Brien says the best thing about mentoring is seeing the mentees grow and succeed: "We see in them something they can't see in themselves, we believe in them, and help guide them to achieve their goals. The funny thing is that sometimes the advice we give them is also useful for ourselves, so as mentors we end up learning a lot from the experience too."

TV screenin a room showing and image od Glafira Zhur

Glafira Zhur

Both Glafira and Julia state that they're willing to mentor other women on their way to success. Asked what is the most important learning from a mentorship program, they mention confidence—believing in yourself is something they want for every female developer out there.

Growing as a part of the community

Both Glafira and Julia mentioned that during the programs they met many inspiring people from their local developer communities. Being able to ask others for help, share insights and doubts, and get feedback was a valuable lesson for both women.

Mentors may become role models for the programs' participants. Julia mentioned how important it was for her to see someone else succeed and follow in their footsteps, to map out exactly where you want to be professionally, and how you can get there. This means learning not just from someone else's failures, but also from their victories and achievements.

Networking within the developer community is also a great opportunity to grow your audience by visiting other contributors' podcasts and YouTube channels. Glafira recalls that during the Academy, she received multiple invites and had an opportunity to share her knowledge on different channels.

Overall, what's even more important than growing your audience is finding your own voice. As Debbie states: "We need more women speaking at conferences, sharing knowledge online, and being part of the community. So I encourage you all to be brave and follow your dreams. I believe in you, so now it's time to start believing in yourself."

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 is open for mentor organization applications!

GSoC logo
With the new year comes the start of our 17th edition of Google Summer of Code (GSoC)! Right now open source projects and organizations can apply to participate as mentoring organizations for the students in the 2021 program. GSoC is a global program that draws student developers (18 years old and over) from around the world to contribute to open source projects. This year, from June 7th to August 16th, each student will spend 10 weeks working on a coding project with the support of volunteer mentors from participating open source organizations.

Does your open source project want to learn more about becoming a mentoring organization? Visit the program site and read the mentor guide to learn about what it means to be a mentor organization, how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of enthusiastic mentors!), creating appropriate project ideas (that will be ~175 hour projects for the student), and tips for preparing your application.

We welcome all types of organizations and are very eager to involve first-time organizations with a 2021 goal of accepting 40 new orgs. We encourage veteran organizations to refer other organizations they think would be a good fit to participate in GSoC as well.

Last year, 1,106 students completed the program under the guidance of over 2,000 mentors from 198 open source organizations. Many types of open source organizations are involved in GSoC, from small and medium sized open source organizations to larger, umbrella organizations with many sub-projects under them (Python Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, etc.). Some organizations are relatively young (less than 2 years old), while other organizations have been around for 20+ years.

You can apply to be a mentoring organization for GSoC starting today on the program site. The deadline to apply is February 19th at 19:00 UTC. We will publicly announce the organizations chosen for GSoC 2021 on March 9th.

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

Good luck to all open source mentoring organization applicants!

By Stephanie Taylor, Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2021 is open for mentor organization applications!

GSoC logo
With the new year comes the start of our 17th edition of Google Summer of Code (GSoC)! Right now open source projects and organizations can apply to participate as mentoring organizations for the students in the 2021 program. GSoC is a global program that draws student developers (18 years old and over) from around the world to contribute to open source projects. This year, from June 7th to August 16th, each student will spend 10 weeks working on a coding project with the support of volunteer mentors from participating open source organizations.

Does your open source project want to learn more about becoming a mentoring organization? Visit the program site and read the mentor guide to learn about what it means to be a mentor organization, how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of enthusiastic mentors!), creating appropriate project ideas (that will be ~175 hour projects for the student), and tips for preparing your application.

We welcome all types of organizations and are very eager to involve first-time organizations with a 2021 goal of accepting 40 new orgs. We encourage veteran organizations to refer other organizations they think would be a good fit to participate in GSoC as well.

Last year, 1,106 students completed the program under the guidance of over 2,000 mentors from 198 open source organizations. Many types of open source organizations are involved in GSoC, from small and medium sized open source organizations to larger, umbrella organizations with many sub-projects under them (Python Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, etc.). Some organizations are relatively young (less than 2 years old), while other organizations have been around for 20+ years.

You can apply to be a mentoring organization for GSoC starting today on the program site. The deadline to apply is February 19th at 19:00 UTC. We will publicly announce the organizations chosen for GSoC 2021 on March 9th.

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

Good luck to all open source mentoring organization applicants!

By Stephanie Taylor, Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2021 is open for mentor organization applications!

GSoC logo
With the new year comes the start of our 17th edition of Google Summer of Code (GSoC)! Right now open source projects and organizations can apply to participate as mentoring organizations for the students in the 2021 program. GSoC is a global program that draws student developers (18 years old and over) from around the world to contribute to open source projects. This year, from June 7th to August 16th, each student will spend 10 weeks working on a coding project with the support of volunteer mentors from participating open source organizations.

Does your open source project want to learn more about becoming a mentoring organization? Visit the program site and read the mentor guide to learn about what it means to be a mentor organization, how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of enthusiastic mentors!), creating appropriate project ideas (that will be ~175 hour projects for the student), and tips for preparing your application.

We welcome all types of organizations and are very eager to involve first-time organizations with a 2021 goal of accepting 40 new orgs. We encourage veteran organizations to refer other organizations they think would be a good fit to participate in GSoC as well.

Last year, 1,106 students completed the program under the guidance of over 2,000 mentors from 198 open source organizations. Many types of open source organizations are involved in GSoC, from small and medium sized open source organizations to larger, umbrella organizations with many sub-projects under them (Python Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, etc.). Some organizations are relatively young (less than 2 years old), while other organizations have been around for 20+ years.

You can apply to be a mentoring organization for GSoC starting today on the program site. The deadline to apply is February 19th at 19:00 UTC. We will publicly announce the organizations chosen for GSoC 2021 on March 9th.

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

Good luck to all open source mentoring organization applicants!

By Stephanie Taylor, Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2021 is open for mentor organization applications!

GSoC logo
With the new year comes the start of our 17th edition of Google Summer of Code (GSoC)! Right now open source projects and organizations can apply to participate as mentoring organizations for the students in the 2021 program. GSoC is a global program that draws student developers (18 years old and over) from around the world to contribute to open source projects. This year, from June 7th to August 16th, each student will spend 10 weeks working on a coding project with the support of volunteer mentors from participating open source organizations.

Does your open source project want to learn more about becoming a mentoring organization? Visit the program site and read the mentor guide to learn about what it means to be a mentor organization, how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of enthusiastic mentors!), creating appropriate project ideas (that will be ~175 hour projects for the student), and tips for preparing your application.

We welcome all types of organizations and are very eager to involve first-time organizations with a 2021 goal of accepting 40 new orgs. We encourage veteran organizations to refer other organizations they think would be a good fit to participate in GSoC as well.

Last year, 1,106 students completed the program under the guidance of over 2,000 mentors from 198 open source organizations. Many types of open source organizations are involved in GSoC, from small and medium sized open source organizations to larger, umbrella organizations with many sub-projects under them (Python Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, etc.). Some organizations are relatively young (less than 2 years old), while other organizations have been around for 20+ years.

You can apply to be a mentoring organization for GSoC starting today on the program site. The deadline to apply is February 19th at 19:00 UTC. We will publicly announce the organizations chosen for GSoC 2021 on March 9th.

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

Good luck to all open source mentoring organization applicants!

By Stephanie Taylor, Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2021 will bring some changes

Google Open Source is pleased to announce the 2021 cycle of the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program, which will be our 17th consecutive year bringing students into open source communities. Over the past 16 years Google Summer of Code has brought over 16,000 student developers from 111 countries into 715 open source organizations big and small.

Some exciting changes are coming to the 2021 GSoC as we make adjustments to add more flexibility into the program for students and mentors alike.
  • With the pandemic straining folks’ time we are changing the size of the projects and time commitment students are expected to spend on their projects. Starting in 2021, students will be focused on a 175-hour project over a 10-week coding period.
  • As students are learning in many different educational formats in 2020, we are opening up the 2021 program to students 18 years and older who are:
    1. Enrolled in post-secondary academic programs (including college, university, masters program, PhD program and/or undergraduate program, or licensed coding school, etc.) as of May 17, 2021; or,
    2. Have graduated from a post-secondary academic program between December 1, 2020 and May 17, 2021.

We’re excited that GSoC will be able to continue to thrive as we welcome more students from around the world into open source in 2021! Applications for interested open source project organizations open on January 29th, and student applications open March 29, 2021.

Does your open source project want to learn more about how to apply to be a mentoring organization? This is a mentorship program so having mentors excited about teaching students how to be a part of your community and ready to guide students is key.

Visit the program site and read the mentor guide to learn more about what it means to be a mentor organization, how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of enthusiastic mentors!), create appropriate project ideas, and tips for preparing your application. We welcome all types of organizations—large and small—and are very eager to involve first time projects. For 2021, we hope to welcome more organizations than ever before and are looking to accept at least 40 into their first GSoC.

Are you a student interested in learning how to prepare for the 2021 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 guide for important tips on preparing your proposal and what to consider if you wish to apply for the program in late-March. You can also get inspired by checking out the 198 organizations that participated in Google Summer of Code 2020, 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 changes will help more excited folks apply to be students and mentoring organizations in GSoC 2021!

By Stephanie Taylor, Program Manager—Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2021 will bring some changes

Google Open Source is pleased to announce the 2021 cycle of the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program, which will be our 17th consecutive year bringing students into open source communities. Over the past 16 years Google Summer of Code has brought over 16,000 student developers from 111 countries into 715 open source organizations big and small.

Some exciting changes are coming to the 2021 GSoC as we make adjustments to add more flexibility into the program for students and mentors alike.
  • With the pandemic straining folks’ time we are changing the size of the projects and time commitment students are expected to spend on their projects. Starting in 2021, students will be focused on a 175-hour project over a 10-week coding period.
  • As students are learning in many different educational formats in 2020, we are opening up the 2021 program to students 18 years and older who are:
    1. Enrolled in post-secondary academic programs (including college, university, masters program, PhD program and/or undergraduate program, or licensed coding school, etc.) as of May 17, 2021; or,
    2. Have graduated from a post-secondary academic program between December 1, 2020 and May 17, 2021.

We’re excited that GSoC will be able to continue to thrive as we welcome more students from around the world into open source in 2021! Applications for interested open source project organizations open on January 29th, and student applications open March 29, 2021.

Does your open source project want to learn more about how to apply to be a mentoring organization? This is a mentorship program so having mentors excited about teaching students how to be a part of your community and ready to guide students is key.

Visit the program site and read the mentor guide to learn more about what it means to be a mentor organization, how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of enthusiastic mentors!), create appropriate project ideas, and tips for preparing your application. We welcome all types of organizations—large and small—and are very eager to involve first time projects. For 2021, we hope to welcome more organizations than ever before and are looking to accept at least 40 into their first GSoC.

Are you a student interested in learning how to prepare for the 2021 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 guide for important tips on preparing your proposal and what to consider if you wish to apply for the program in late-March. You can also get inspired by checking out the 198 organizations that participated in Google Summer of Code 2020, 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 changes will help more excited folks apply to be students and mentoring organizations in GSoC 2021!

By Stephanie Taylor, Program Manager—Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2021 will bring some changes

Google Open Source is pleased to announce the 2021 cycle of the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program, which will be our 17th consecutive year bringing students into open source communities. Over the past 16 years Google Summer of Code has brought over 16,000 student developers from 111 countries into 715 open source organizations big and small.

Some exciting changes are coming to the 2021 GSoC as we make adjustments to add more flexibility into the program for students and mentors alike.
  • With the pandemic straining folks’ time we are changing the size of the projects and time commitment students are expected to spend on their projects. Starting in 2021, students will be focused on a 175-hour project over a 10-week coding period.
  • As students are learning in many different educational formats in 2020, we are opening up the 2021 program to students 18 years and older who are:
    1. Enrolled in post-secondary academic programs (including college, university, masters program, PhD program and/or undergraduate program, or licensed coding school, etc.) as of May 17, 2021; or,
    2. Have graduated from a post-secondary academic program between December 1, 2020 and May 17, 2021.

We’re excited that GSoC will be able to continue to thrive as we welcome more students from around the world into open source in 2021! Applications for interested open source project organizations open on January 29th, and student applications open March 29, 2021.

Does your open source project want to learn more about how to apply to be a mentoring organization? This is a mentorship program so having mentors excited about teaching students how to be a part of your community and ready to guide students is key.

Visit the program site and read the mentor guide to learn more about what it means to be a mentor organization, how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of enthusiastic mentors!), create appropriate project ideas, and tips for preparing your application. We welcome all types of organizations—large and small—and are very eager to involve first time projects. For 2021, we hope to welcome more organizations than ever before and are looking to accept at least 40 into their first GSoC.

Are you a student interested in learning how to prepare for the 2021 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 guide for important tips on preparing your proposal and what to consider if you wish to apply for the program in late-March. You can also get inspired by checking out the 198 organizations that participated in Google Summer of Code 2020, 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 changes will help more excited folks apply to be students and mentoring organizations in GSoC 2021!

By Stephanie Taylor, Program Manager—Google Open Source

Google Summer of Code 2020: Learning Together


In its 16th year of the program, we are pleased to announce that 1,106 students from 65 countries have successfully completed Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2020! These student projects are the result of three months of collaboration between students, 198 open source organizations, and over 2,000 mentors from 67 countries.

During the course of the program what we learned was most important to the students was the ability to learn, mentorship, and community building. From the student evaluations at the completion of the program, we collected additional statistics from students about the GSoC program, where we found some common themes. The word cloud below shows what mattered the most to our students, and the larger the word in the cloud, the more frequently it was used to describe mentors and open source.

Valuable insights collected from the students:
  • 94% of students think that GSoC helped their programming
  • 96% of students would recommend their GSoC mentors
  • 94% of students will continue working with their GSoC organization
  • 97% of students will continue working on open source
  • 27% of students said GSoC has already helped them get a job or internship
The GSoC program has been an invaluable learning journey for students. In tackling real world, real time implementations, they've grown their skills and confidence by leaps and bounds. With the support and guidance from mentors, they’ve also discovered that the value of their work isn’t just for the project at hand, but for the community at large. As newfound contributors, they leave the GSoC program enriched and eager to continue their open source journey.

Throughout its 16 years, GSoC continues to ignite students to carry on their work and dedication to open source, even after their time with the program has ended. In the years to come, we look forward to many of this year’s students paying it forward by mentoring new contributors to their communities or even starting their own open source project. Such lasting impact cannot be achieved without the inspiring work of mentors and organization administrators. Thank you all and congratulations on such a memorable year!

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