We are participating in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2023 for the first time, and we could not be more excited! GSoC is an international program led by Google where students around the world get stipends to contribute to free and open-source projects during the summer! It's an exciting opportunity both for contributors and to the projects to work on key topics and ideas that will benefit the entire community!
Every organisation proposes a series of topics or ideas for students to contribute on. Students have a period to familiarise themselves with the projects and proposed ideas and interact with the organisation-designated mentors to write their contribution proposals. We received proposals from a wide range of students, from high school to PhD students!
Our team reviewed all 43 proposals and ranked them according to how good they were and how fit the team considered them to be for the projects. The final selection of contributors was done by Google. We are happy to announce that this year we will be welcoming our first two contributors to our Slips project!
Our contributor Daniel Yang will work with us on Improving Slips Performance Data Gathering. Daniel is a computer science student from the University of California (UC). During the GSoC summer, Daniel will work on a major aspect of Slips: performance. Daniel's GSoC mentors will be varied, as it's a complex problem, and we expect to provide as much help as possible to make the most of it. Our mentors are Alya Gomaa, Sebastian Garcia, and Veronica Valeros.
Our contributor Shubhangi Choudhary will work with us on Improving SLIPS Web Interface. Shubhangi is an electrical engineering student from the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi. During the GSoC summer, Shubhangi will work on another key aspect of Slips: the web interface. Shubhangi's GSoC mentors will be composed of the core team of Slips, Alya Gomaa and Sebastian Garcia.
What is next? Now that the projects and contributors are announced, we officially start the GSoC Community Bonding Period from May 4th to May 28th. In this period, we will be working closely with the contributors and mentors to establish a good workflow, communication and organisation for the summer. The coding officially starts on May 29th and lasts for about 12 weeks.
We are truly happy to be participating in the GSoC2023 for the first time, and we hope to share some of our progress and news along the way! Stay tuned!