Student applications for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2015 closed on March 27th and this year’s mentoring organizations are now busy reviewing student proposals. While we await the results of that process, we’ve been looking at some of the early statistics for this year’s program.
One thing we’re very excited to see is that we received nearly four times as many student applications from Sub-Saharan Africa compared to last year! The gain primarily came from four countries: Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. These countries combined had just 45 students apply in 2014, but that number jumped up to 183 this year. Why was the increase concentrated in these locations? There’s a common thread that seems to be responsible: they are places where students active in the Google Student Ambassador (GSA) program organized local GSoC meet-up events.
Cameroon
After lending a hand to a fellow student organizing a meetup in December, GSA Tekang Check brought 77 students together in March at the University of Buea to learn about GSoC and help students apply. Participants from past years shared their experiences and encouraged attendees to submit proposals for projects they felt passionate about.
Kenya
GSA John Muchiri welcomed over 100 students from St Paul’s University to a GSoC meet-up. The speakers talked about the characteristics good programmers develop and encouraged students to challenge themselves by applying to the program.
At Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, GSAs Isaac Jumba and Dickson Marienga introduced students to GSoC as part of the local DevFest event which drew over 150 attendees. The session gave an overview of GSoC and encouraged students to sign up for a regional GSoC enthusiasts mailing list.
Nigeria
GSAs Ilo Calistus, Okwara Godswill, and Mgbemena Chike collaborated on a pair of events at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. The first introduced students to the basics of programming for Android while the second taught students about using Git. Both events also introduced students to the world of open source and encouraged them to take part in GSoC.
At Ekiti State University, GSAs Sadiq Mary Oiza and Alabea Dare Micheal organized a GSoC meet-up for 35 students. After a discussion about current events at the university, the presenters gave an overview of the GSoC program and encouraged students to create profiles on the program website.
GSA James Uzoma organized a meet-up at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta where 40 students from 6 colleges enjoyed a series of talks featuring stories from fellow Nigerians who had participated in past years, an explanation of the requirements for participating, and some details about the different open source organizations students could apply to work with.
Uganda
GSA Kagimu Brian brought together 72 students for a GSoC meet-up at Mbarara University of Science and Technology. Attendees learned about the benefits and experiences that can come from taking part in GSoC, along with an introduction to Git.
Only a limited number of students can be accepted in GSoC each year, but we hope to welcome several of the students who attended these events into this year’s program. Accepted students will be notified via email by 19:00 UTC on April 27th, so keep watching your inbox.
By Ashleigh Rentz, Open Source team
