Tag Archives: student programs

Google Summer of Code 2023 contributor applications open!

Contributor applications for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2023 are now open! Students and open source beginners 18 years and older are welcome to apply during the registration period, which opened March 20th at 18:00 UTC and closes April 4th at 18:00 UTC.

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. GSoC’s mission is centered around bringing new contributors into open source communities through mentorship and collaboration.

Since 2005, GSoC has welcomed new developers into the open source community every year. The GSoC program has brought together over 19,000 contributors from 112 countries and 18,000 mentors from 800+ open source organizations.

2023 will be the 19th consecutive year hosting Google Summer of Code. We are keeping the big changes we made leading into the 2022 program, with one adjustment around eligibility described below:

  • Increased flexibility in project lengths (10-22 weeks, not a set 12 weeks for everyone).
  • Choice of project time commitment (medium at ~175 hours or large at ~350 hours)
  • For 2023, we are expanding the program to be open to students and beginners in open source software development.

We invite students and beginners in open source to check out Google Summer of Code. Now that applications are open, please keep a few helpful tips in mind:

Interested contributors may register and submit project proposals on the GSoC site from now until Tuesday, April 4th at 18:00 UTC.

Best of luck to all our applicants!

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

Celebrate Google’s Coding Competitions with a final round of programming fun

Google’s Coding Competitions at g/co.codingcompetitions.

After 20 years, Google's Coding Competitions come to a close with a final round.

By: The Coding Competitions Team

Remember 2003? Before Chrome, Google Calendar, Android, and YouTube? When we carefully cleaned up our saved emails because GMail and its gigabyte of storage hadn't arrived? Two decades ago – Google launched a global coding competition called Code Jam, which challenged programmers of all levels to test and hone their skills by racing to solve algorithmic problems.

From there, our coding competition lineup continued to grow. Kick Start began as a contest for recent graduates in China and quickly spread around the world. Hash Code, Google's first team-based challenge, started in Europe. And a first-in-class Distributed Code Jam asked participants to build solutions that could scale when run on multiple machines.

Throughout our coding competitions' 20-year history, you've generated billions of lines of code across millions of submissions. You've gone through hundreds of rounds for thousands of problems and put in millions of hours of code execution and testing. Over a million of you from almost every country worldwide have participated — from experienced programmers to students and everyone in between. And now, just as we invited you to our very first round in 2003, we're asking you to join us for one final event as the competitions come to an end.

Join us on Saturday, April 15, 2023 at 2 p.m. UTC as we host four simultaneous online rounds of competition at varying levels of difficulty. Register now to get in on the action.

And to those who've taken part over the years: It's been an honor to learn, succeed, fail, and have fun coding with you. Through the conceptual art, the slides, the gophers, and the absurd number of pancakes, we did it – and we did it together. Thanks for going on this journey with us.

Mentor organization applications are open for Google Summer of Code 2023!


We are excited to announce that open source projects and organizations can now apply to participate as mentor organizations in the 2023 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program. Applications for organizations will close on February 7, 2023 at 18:00 UTC.

As 2023 begins, so does our 19th year of Google Summer of Code! Last year, we had a few updates to the program that will continue for the 2023 program year. Our most noted change coming in 2023 is that we are expanding the program to be open to students and to beginners in open source software development. We are also continuing our increased flexibility in the length of the projects—offering 175 and 350-hour projects—and the ability to extend the program from the standard 12 weeks up to 22 weeks.

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 mentor organization and how to prepare your community (hint: have plenty of excited, dedicated mentors and well thought out project ideas!).

We welcome all types of organizations and are very eager to involve first-timers with a 2023 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, media, and more! Projects can range from being relatively new (about 2 years old) to well established projects that started over 20 years ago. We welcome open source projects big, small, and everything in between.

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

You can apply to be a mentor organization for GSoC starting today on the program site. The deadline to apply is February 7, 2023 at 18:00 UTC. We will publicly announce the organizations chosen for GSoC 2023 on February 22nd.

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, our new ‘Intro to Google Summer of Code’ video, 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 mentor organization applicants!

By Stephanie Taylor, Program Manager – Google Open Source Programs Office

GSoC 2022: It’s a wrap!

We just wrapped up the final projects for Google Summer of Code 2022 and want to share some highlights from this year’s program. We are pleased to announce that a total of 1,054 GSoC contributors successfully completed the 2022 cycle.

2022 saw some considerable changes to the Google Summer of Code program. Let’s start with some stats around those three major changes:

    • The standard 12-week project length was used by 71.2% of contributors while 19.21% spent between 13–18 weeks on their project, while 9.33% of GSoC contributors took advantage of the 19–22 week project lengths. It is clear from feedback written by mentors and contributors alike the option for extended project lengths was a hit with participants.
    • GSoC 2022 allowed both medium-size (~175 hours) and large-size (~350 hours) projects. For 2022, 47% of the contributor projects were medium while 53% were large projects.
    • This year the program was also open to more than students for the first time and 10.4% of the accepted GSoC contributors were non-students.

In the final weeks of the program we asked contributors and mentors questions about their experiences with the program this year. Here are some of the key takeaways from the participants:

Favorite part of GSoC 2022

There were a few themes that rose to the top when contributors were asked what their favorite part of the program was:

  1. Getting involved in their organization’s open source community with folks from all around the world and their amazing mentors.
  2. Learning new skills (programming languages, skills, new technologies) and learning more about open source communities.
  3. Contributing to a meaningful community and project.
  4. Learning from experienced and thoughtful developers (their mentors and their whole community).

Improved programming skills

96% of contributors think that GSoC helped their programming skills. The most common responses to how GSoC improved their skills were:

  • Improving the quality of their code through feedback from mentors, collaboration and learning more about the importance of code reviews.
  • Gaining confidence in their coding skills and knowledge about best practices. Learning how to write more efficient code and to meet the org’s coding standards.
  • Ability to read and understand real complex codebases, and learning how to implement code with other developer’s code.

Most challenging parts of GSoC

And the most common struggles included:
  • Managing their time effectively with many other commitments.
  • Initial days starting with the organization, understanding the codebase, and sometimes learning a new programming language along the way.
  • Communicating with mentors and community members in different time zones and collaborating remotely.

Additional fun stats from GSoC Contributors

  • 99% of GSoC contributors would recommend their GSoC mentors
  • 98% of GSoC contributors plan to continue working with their GSoC organization
  • 99% of GSoC contributors plan to continue working on open source
  • 35% of GSoC contributors said GSoC has already helped them get a job or internship
  • 84% of GSoC contributors said they would consider being a mentor
  • 95% of GSoC contributors said they would apply to GSoC again

We know that’s a lot of numbers to read through, but folks ask us for more information and feedback on GSoC each year. Our hope is that we succeeded in providing additional details for this 2022 program. Every mentor and GSoC contributor took the time to fill in their evaluations and give us great written feedback on how the program affected them so we wanted to highlight this.

As we look forward to Google Summer of Code 2023, we want to thank all of our mentors, organization administrators, and contributors for a successful and smooth GSoC 2022. Thank you all for the time and energy you put in to make open source communities stronger and healthier.

Remember GSoC 2023 will be open for organization applications from January 23–February 7, 2023. We will announce the 2023 accepted GSoC organizations February 22 on the program site: g.co/gsoc. GSoC contributor applications will be open March 20–April 4, 2023.

By Stephanie Taylor, Program Manager – Google Open Source

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

Helping all New Yorkers pursue a career in tech

As New York emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the tech sector continues to play a critical role in the city’s economic recovery. While hiring has slowed in many of the city’s industries, tech is still among the fastest areas of job growth. In fact, there were more openings for tech positions during the pandemic than in any other industry.

We believe the city’s good-paying tech jobs should be within reach of all New Yorkers. That’s why earlier this year we announced the Google NYC Tech Opportunity Fund — a $4 million commitment to computer science (CS) education, career development and job-preparedness to make sure every New Yorker, today and in the future, has the chance to get into tech.

With over 680,000 good-paying tech jobs, New York has more tech workers than any other U.S. city. That means for every one Googler in New York, there are over 50 additional tech jobs here. So we’ve extended our support for tech in New York beyond our own hiring to the city’s overall tech employment pipeline — starting from the classroom all the way to the office.

We’ve had some early success: We’ve trained 1,200 New York City high school students through our CS education programs like Code Next and the Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI). Meanwhile, Grow with Google has partnered with over 530 organizations to train more than 430,000 New Yorkers on digital skills with the help of organizations like public libraries and chambers of commerce. We also launched an apprenticeship program where over 90% of participants nationally landed quality jobs in tech, including at Google, within six months of completing the program. And we’re supporting New York-based startups through Google’s Black Founders Fund and Latino Founders Fund.

With the Google NYC Tech Opportunity Fund, we’re going a step further. We’ve identified key areas we believe Google can help address larger systemic issues and where we’ll focus our investments.

Support for teaching early tech skills

P-12 students with access to CS classes in school are nearly three times more likely to aspire to have a job in the field. But to offer these courses, schools need teachers who are trained in computational skills. After supporting a CS teacher training program at Hunter College in 2021, we committed an additional $1.5 million to The City University of New York (CUNY) and Hunter College to help them train more CS teachers and incorporate computational thinking into their curricula.

New York City's public libraries are essential learning environments for many, especially in under-resourced communities. Thousands of teens use the city’s three library systems annually to get college and career mentoring, build digital literacy, borrow books and more. So we granted a total of $1.5 million to Brooklyn Public Library, The New York Public Library and Queens Public Library to help them create special teen centers. These spaces will offer access to technology, resources and programs teens need to develop essential career skills for the future.

Resources for job seekers

We’re also providing a $1 million Google.org grant to the New York City Employment and Training Coalition (NYCETC) to assemble a consortium of leaders in tech education and workforce development, and to seed a grant fund for organizations that support BIPOC job seekers in NYC.

As part of this effort, we also offer free Google Career Certificates for community colleges, such as The State University of New York’s (SUNY) online center. Over 10,000 New Yorkers have already completed a Google Career certificate and built up their qualifications for high-demand tech jobs.

By taking steps to support students and those already in the workforce, we can help ensure all New Yorkers have access to career opportunities so the tech sector in New York really looks like New York.

A pilot program to build a diverse pool of policy experts

During the 15 years I have been at Google, I have seen important improvements in the diversity of our workforce. For example, I used to be the only woman in the room, but now I am often surrounded by talented women leaders.

I work in the world of government affairs and public policy, which means engaging with governments and influencers to find constructive solutions to challenges that our industry and society face today. Having diverse representation and voices is important to us, as so much of our work requires building relationships across different groups, geographies, issues, and perspectives. But we must still do more to ensure that we are fostering a tech policy ecosystem that reflects the diversity of the world we build for.

That’s why our team started the Policy Summer Institute (PSI) with our academic partners at CIVICA, an alliance of eight leading European higher education institutions in the social sciences. The goal: to promote professional opportunities of first-generation university students in the digital policy ecosystem.

For our first year, nine scholars from Sudan to Switzerland had the opportunity to learn about how we work on tech policy by spending a week with our government affairs and public policy team in Europe. They then completed a summer internship funded by Google with one of our partner consultancies.

I am delighted that several of our scholars were offered further employment opportunities at their agencies following their internships. Others will continue to explore tech policy issues through their studies.

Shivona Fernandes-Köhler, an Msc. Politics and Policy Analysis student at Bocconi University in Milan, shared her key takeaways from the experience:

What was your motivation to apply for the program?

I have always been interested in the interrelations between the private and public sector, especially regarding innovation, and wanted to understand the impact that policy firms and big tech have on the world around us. However, without an existing network, internships in the field are often limited and challenging to gain access to. When I first saw the program, I didn’t think I had a chance, but when I saw that it focused on first-generation university students, I felt motivated to apply and showcase that diversity is in fact my strength.

Seven photographs of ten people in various locations at Google offices.

Our amazing first cohort of PSI scholars. Shivona is on the top right in a white shirt standing next to Mahreen Zaidi San Miguel, who was a coordinator of the program.

How has this experience prepared you for the next stage of your career?

In the immediate term, I'll be staying on with the policy agency I interned with as a working student while I finish my studies. Being part of the PSI showed me that it's important to get a range of experience in different sectors, and that in order to really progress my career, I'll need to build a strong network of professional contacts. Being part of this program and working with fascinating and diverse individuals has given me a new sense of confidence, one that highlights that taking a unique path is key to a successful future.

What was something you learned that was unexpected or surprising?

My summer in Berlin was filled with surprises. I was unaware of the many facets of this sector and the incredible team effort involved in making it function. From the outside, it can appear as if policy-making is not something that businesses should be involved in, but rather something that should be left to the politicians. Instead, I have realized that both the public and the private are essential to one another and that they can only function with a well-coordinated network. I was also surprised on a personal and cultural level. Despite living in Italy, and being raised in Germany, I never realized that working cultures can be so different even within a country!

Can you share an example over this summer where you brought a different perspective to the work you were doing?

People in the tech and policy world can often get stuck in their own bubbles: Everyone has their own habits, organizational methods and ways of communicating. Being at a small policy firm that had just begun working with Google, I had the opportunity to develop methods and strategies to make collaboration and communication easier and more effective. I was especially involved in delivering new event formats and monitoring media updates. As a newcomer to the sector, I was able to highlight areas of ambiguity and improve existing organizational matters, facilitating workflow and workload.

While the tech policy industry needs to do a lot more when it comes to diversity, I am proud of the results of this pilot program and look forward to continuing to work with our partners to build a robust, diverse talent pool that supports our industry’s growth.

One researcher’s take on Google’s mentorship program

As a sophomore at Howard University, Leslie Coney discovered what would soon become her “superpower” while she and a friend were washing their hands in the bathroom. Attempting to use the hand dryer, they noticed it worked without issue for Leslie, but not for her friend, who had darker skin. Leslie shared this experience with a professor, who introduced her to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), the study of how humans interact with technology.

Leslie started questioning who was actually considered when designing, building and testing technologies. This kicked off her computer science (CS) research journey in Human Centered Design and Engineering, specifically exploring how Black people can influence and are impacted by technology.

Today, Leslie is a PhD student at the University of Washington with a focus on Black maternal health. She’s also a recent graduate of Google’s CS Research Mentorship Program (CSRMP). Through mentorship and peer-to-peer networking, CSRMP supports undergraduate and graduate students from historically marginalized groups pursuing computing research. The program aims to increase the diversity of PhD graduates in computing-related fields and ensure the broader community of CS researchers includes the experiences, perspectives and concerns of people worldwide. Since 2018, CSRMP has hosted more than 730 students across more than 230 institutions. And our next class of nearly 300 students starts in just a few weeks.

Reflecting on her CSRMP experience, Leslie shared more about its impact on her career and her advice for future participants.

How did you get into the research field?

I focused on building community, seeking guidance from my professors and taking advantage of as many resources as possible both on and off-campus. For example, I received funding through Google’s Conference Scholarships program to attend conferences like Tapia and Grace Hopper Celebration, where I connected with other Black women researchers.

How did CSRMP prepare you for the next step in your research career?

My mentor helped me think critically about my research interests and what makes a program and advisor a good fit for me. He encouraged me to ask the tough questions when figuring out where I could be most successful in graduate school. He also helped me better understand what rigorous research looks like in academia and what to expect as a PhD student.

Were there any challenges you had to overcome during your time in CSRMP?

I wasn’t the most comfortable in my pod at first, given that I was the only Black woman in the group. My experience at a Historically Black University influenced me to focus my research efforts on the Black community — which was something I was proud of but nervous to share with folks who aren’t Black. There is an unnecessary pressure placed on researchers from marginalized groups to validate why centering marginalized experiences is sufficient and valuable. However, my CSRMP mentor and podmates reaffirmed this decision and supported my pursuit. Also, there are very nuanced experiences in academia that are specific to Black women, and while my mentor couldn't fully prepare me for them, he still encouraged me to seek relationships that could close that gap.

You just published your first piece! Tell us about it.

Yes, I did! My article, “Why you being WEIRD to me?: reflections of a black researcher on WEIRD-ness in HCI,” started out as a final assignment last fall. I was tasked with writing about common threads throughout readings on diversity, or the lack thereof, in HCI. Afterward, a peer and fellow Black woman researcher invited me to write something for the next edition of the Association for Computing Machinery XRDS series. Writing the paper was so much fun — I got to exercise my critical thinking muscles, incorporate cultural references and prioritize accessibility so people outside academia could engage, too.

What advice do you have for students who are underrepresented in CS research and getting started in this field?

More likely than not, you gravitate toward your lived experiences. So be confident in your identities and take advantage of programs like CSRMP to help you back up those lived experiences with practical knowledge. Next, treat the graduate school application process like dating — once you’re accepted, the ball is in your court to decide whether or not that program is a good fit for you. You have to be sure that you will feel safe and supported being yourself and conducting your research. Lastly, pace yourself and have fun! A PhD is a long commitment, so be sure to find a balance between work and play.

Congratulations to all the students who graduated from CSRMP in the first half of 2022. We look forward to supporting future students like Leslie, who are taking charge in computing research. Applications are now open for the January 2023 mentorship cycle — spread the word and apply by October 26, 2022.