Eight Australians and five Kiwis have made the cut for the 2009 Google Summer of Code, announced today.
More than 1000 students were accepted into the fifth year of the program from 70 countries and will work on about 150 open source projects with mentor organisations.
The program, created in 2005, has exposed some 2500 students to “real-world” software development and opened employment opportunities within mentor organisations and in fields relevant to their academic study.
See related slideshow: In Pictures: Project highlights from the 2009 Google Summer of Code
Google Open Source Team program manager Leslie Hawthorn said students and mentors will now begin a “community bonding” period before commencing projects.
“Rather than jumping straight into coding, you've got some time to learn about your organisation's processes - release and otherwise - developer interactions [and] codes of conduct,” Hawthorn said in a blog. “We also figured it would be easier to socially engage with your fellow developers when the pressure to ship isn't looming in your vision.”
She said the program allows participating projects to more easily identify and recruit new developers. “Best of all, more source code is created and released for the use and benefit of all.”
The United States scored the lion's share with 212 accepted students; 101 from India; 55 from Germany; 44 from Canada, 43 from Brazil. The Dominican Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg and Nigeria were new entrants to the program each with a single accepted student.
Hawthorn said those not participating in the program should continue work on Open Source project ideas.
“Take advantage of this opportunity to fix some bugs, hone your skills and prepare for future instances of the program,” she said.
