Google Summer Of Code – India Ranks 2nd Among Accepted Applications

Google summer of code, a Google initiative under which university students contribute (write code) to open source projects receives huge participation from all over the globe every year. In the 2011 edition of GSoC, Google received more than five and a half thousand applications out of which 1115 applications were accepted from 68 countries.

India had 182 students whose applications were accepted under this program. The only country with higher number of successful applications was the United States with 191 students.

GSoC is an annual program in which Google partners with organizations from the FOSS (free and open source software) community and offers projects to students. After reviewing all these applications it selects students and offers them a generous stipend ($5000 this year) upon completion of this project. It was started in 2005 and the idea for GSoC came directly from Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Mayank Singh, a student who will be doing a project this summer with the python software foundation (the organization behind the programming language python) under the GSoC program spoke to WATBlog. His project aims to add a Wii remote and an Android smartphone as alternate inputs to a cloud based game engine. It will bring motion sensing capabilities to this game engine. He had to learn python, genie, have knowledge of the REST API and the XMPP protocol (used in Googletalk, Facebook chat). When asked what will he be doing with his stipend he said “I used my stipend to get me a wii remote and will use some more of it to get an Android phone. Also, I will use it to pay my ever increasing college fees for 1 year atleast and if some of it is still left, I’ll pool for future.”

The huge number of selections in GSoC reaffirm the fact that India produces lots of engineers each year with some of them being exceptionally talented. Foursquare, Google and a lot of other companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere have Indians working for them. Facebook, Zynga have opened up offices in India. Initiatives like GSoC will only help raise the skill level of students and bring more companies to Indian shores or even start new ones.