Hour of Code reinforces need for project mentors

Administrators, mentors needed for Google Summer of Code

In the words of will.i.am, “great coders are today's rock stars,” but unfortunately there are not enough of these rock stars in the world to fulfill the demand.

Since this week is the Hour of Code, it’s a good time emphasize the need for the Open Source Software community to participate in outreach programs.

Besides doing what you can to participate in this weeks Hour of Code, its important to point out the need to have administrators and mentors from openSUSE’s community for the annual Google Summer of Code.

Google Summer of Code, which openSUSE has participatied in for several years, offers post-secondary student developers a stipends to write code for various open source software projects. Students are matched with a mentoring organization like openSUSE and given projects to work on over a three-month period. Last year there were 1,300 students with 190 mentoring organizations that took part in the program. Administrators get the process started and mentors help future developers understand real-world software development scenarios.

Administrators start the GSOC process and submit proposals for the mentoring organization by filling out some forms. Administrators submit the application to Google between Feb. 9 and Feb. 20. Project ideas are discussed with potential mentoring organization and mentors are paired with students in the spring.

To participate in this project, visit our GSOC portal or learn more at GSOC.

Learn more about the Hour of Code campaign.