CAT ALLMAN: Hi, my name's Cat Allman.
I manage the Google Open Source outreach team.
My colleague here, Carol Smith, manages our Google
Summer of Code program.
Hi, Carol.
CAROL SMITH: Hi.
CAT ALLMAN: So please tell everybody, what is Google
Summer of Code anyway?
CAROL SMITH: So Google Summer of Code is an online global
university outreach program, and it's intended to get
students involved in working on open source software.
And it was born out of the idea that we wanted students
to be working during their summer breaks from university
to get involved in open source software development and work
on things related to what they were learning in the
university.
And since 2005, it's been partnering mentoring
organizations, open source organizations from outside of
Google, with students to work on a project over the summer
time and are mentored by mentors within their open
source organization.
CAT ALLMAN: It's the 10th year.
Are we doing anything special to celebrate?
CAROL SMITH: In fact we are.
We're doing 10 things to celebrate since it's the 10th
anniversary.
But we're doing a few things that I'm really excited to
talk about it and I want to highlight.
And one of them is that we're raising the student stipend by
10% this year to $5,500 US dollars, which is really
exciting for the students who successfully
complete the program.
And another thing that we're doing is we're going to be
accepting 10% more students than we ever have before.
And also, we're going to be accepting 10 more mentoring
organizations than we ever have before.
So it's going to be our biggest year yet in terms of
more orgs, more students, and more money.
CAT ALLMAN: Fantastic.
What all are we doing as part of these 10
things, besides that?
CAROL SMITH: Well, we're also going to be doing a lot of
outreach and trips and travel to promote the program.
So we're going to-- our team members are going to be
visiting different countries throughout the year.
And starting now and running until the end of the year,
we're going to be visiting the United Kingdom and Canada and
Poland, Romania and India.
CAT ALLMAN: Wow.
CAROL SMITH: Which is very exciting.
CAT ALLMAN: Busy people.
So where can students go online to learn
more about the program?
CAROL SMITH: Well, they can go to a few places.
They can go to your blog and that is at
google-opensource.blogspot.com.
They can also subscribe to our discussion list which is a
Google Groups mailing list, and they can also visit the
website where we administer the program from and that's
google-melange.com.
CAT ALLMAN: Fantastic.
What kinds of information can they find there?
CAROL SMITH: So on google-melange.com they can
find our frequently asked questions, which will give
them more information about the program and how it runs
and answer a lot of questions that they might have.
They can also see student projects that have happened in
the past in previous years, and they can also see
mentoring organizations that have
participated in the past before.
And most importantly, they can see our timeline where they
can learn where the big milestones
for the program are.
CAT ALLMAN: Great.
So when do applications actually open?
CAROL SMITH: So applications for the mentoring
organizations that are interested in participating
next year open on February 3, 2014.
And the deadline for that is February 14, 2014.
And applications for our students open on March 10,
2014, and they end on March 21, 2014.
But I want to say that I think if students are interested in
participating, they really should just take the time to
reach out to an open source organization that they're
interested in working with now, and
they can make contact.
The great thing about open source is that you can
participate any time you want outside of GSOC as well.
CAT ALLMAN: Fantastic.
Are we doing anything else?
CAROL SMITH: In fact we are.
We're also going to be doing a big event next year that's
going to be celebrating the 10th anniversary, and you
should stay tuned to our blog if you're interested in
learning more about that, because we're going to be
announcing things about that soon.
CAT ALLMAN: Wow.
So we're going to be really busy, and we hope that you
will join us.
Please do come and check out the site.
That's google-melange.com to learn more about the program.
And if you like what you see, if you think it would be of
interest to your friends, your fellow students, family
members, please do let them know about it.
We want to get even more students involved in free and
open source software.
And we hope that includes you.
Thanks for watching.