Google Summer of Code 2016

Tl;DR Google Summer of Code offers the students an excellent opportunity to contribute to open source and get exciting gifts and handsome stipends in return. The most important part of participating in it is drafting a good proposal. Some of the important tips are discussed in this post.

Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. Through GSOC, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors from the participating projects, thus gaining exposure to real-world software development scenarios and the opportunity for employment in areas related to their academic pursuits. In turn, the participating projects are able to more easily identify and bring in new developers. Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all.

For the Mentoring Organizations.

Mentoring organizations willing to participate in Google Summer of Code program need to submit a proposal, answering the following important questions(besides others):

1. Describing your organization, and why is the organization willing to participate.
2. Whether or not, they have applied/participated in past?
3. "Their project ideas list". This is the most important part of the proposal, and needs to be carefully completed in order to stand chances of acceptance.
4. Selection criteria of the mentors.
5. What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with the community and stick to open source.

The detailed list of questions can be found out here

For the Students.

Students submit their proposal via the Google Summer of Code site, on the period as would be mentioned in the timeline.
A student's proposal is the golden key to GSOC. Few key points should be kept in mind while drafting a proposal:

1. Project idea which interests you the most and why?
2. Your academic, industry and/or open source experience.
3. Detailed project plan.

Detailed discussion on the proposal can be found at What should a student proposal look like?

However, few things should also be kept in mind:

1. A student can work on only one proposal, and is eligible for only one stipend.
2. No group project is allowed. A student should work individually and independently.
3. However, a student may apply on one or more proposals, 5 at max.

To learn more about Google Summer of Code, visit the following links

https://www.google-melange.com

For GSOC 2016 timeline visit https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline