Hi, everyone --
Google Summer of Code (#gsoc) is a great program where Google funds students from around the world to contribute to open source projects for the summer. We've been part of the program for most of the past five years, and some of PublicLab.org's best features have come out of students' hard work -- like the Q&A feature! -- as well as projects like MapKnitter 2.0, #WebJack, and more.
Project announcements today!
Today's a special day because the announcement just went out on the Google Summer of Code lists with the accepted student projects. I'll update here once they've all been received by students (no spoilers!) but we're geared up for a great summer of improving the collaborative systems we use to work together more openly and effectively. Read about last year's excellent projects here, and about this year's proposals here.
Looking for mentors
Thanks to our mentors so far this year -- @david-days, @Ujitha, @stevie, and @liz -- but we're looking for a few more to round things out.
Please note that although students will be writing software, the mentor role does not require coding experience. I've bolded those roles below that we're specifically looking for non-coders to help with, and there will be mentors available with coding and software knowledge too.
If you're interested in being a mentor, please get in touch -- either in the comments here, or by emailing web@publiclab.org. You can also ask questions and find out more in our chatroom at https://publiclab.org/chat.
What is mentoring like? Well, we need different kinds of folks -- and we'd love your help...
- if you have ~20 minutes per week to check in on and take a quick look over students' weekly submissions (we'll have a checklist to guide you)
- if you have a few minutes every day or so to respond to issues that come up -- help students find resources or get connected to people they need help from
- if you're good at "untangling" tough troubleshooting issues that come up from time to time
- if you're interested in providing feedback on and "trying out" new features students have made (no coding experience needed)
What are you interested in helping with?
What we'd like to do is to ask each mentor to share a few things they're good at, and available for -- for example (again, bold means no coding experience necessary):
- do you have some design or interface skills?
- are you good at holistic systems-level planning?
- are you a "people person" who's great at checking in on and cultivating our community?
- do you like chasing down tough bugs?
- do you know Public Lab's site and community work well enough to help provide feedback and input on new features?
- are you good at "breaking down problems" into smaller, easier, self-contained parts?
I want to especially thank students who submitted proposals and contributed to our software already, but who we were not able to accept this year. Public Lab's Web Working Group is pretty small and we have only so much capacity to support students, but we hope you'll consider working with us again!
Finally, thanks and congratulations to the students who've been accepted this year.
Update:
This summer's proposals
Now that the announcements have gone out -- our projects this summer will be:
34 Comments
Congratulations to @ryzokuken, @stella, @ccpandhare, @mridulnagpal, and @Ashan!
Reply to this comment...
Log in to comment
I'll reach out with next steps tomorrow. Thanks, everybody!
Reply to this comment...
Log in to comment