[conductorchris]

The Vermont Rail Action Network relies on civicrm, an open source constituent management software. They will be (and have in the past) benefited from the google summer of code program that matches students with open source projects that need programmers. I'm not sure, but I think google pays the student a stipend. I wonder if there would be a possibility of getting open rails involved in this program, probably for summer 2015. It seems we have among us some talented student programmers and more would no doubt emerge if a google grant appeared. A summer of concentrated full-time directed work by a talented programmer might help a lot, I'm imagining.

I suppose it is up to the Open Rails team to say if this idea would actually help.

If for some reason open Rails is not eligible or not selected for the summer of code project, perhaps we have some donors in our midst who could pool together a stipend to support a student to help the project? (If it is a good idea).

Christopher

[conductorchris]

Update: edited from the civiCRM blog is the following description of how the program works (Somebody would have to be a mentor):

1. Members of the [OpenRails] community interested in participating as mentors add the information to the Google Summer of Code 2014 Wiki
2. Two Organization Administrators submit the Organization Application [This deadline has passed for this summer]
3. If approved, on Feb 24 students will start asking about existing project ideas and suggesting additional project ideas looking for potential mentors
Students begin officially applying to Google between March 10-21 by by submitting a full project proposal based an existing project idea or their own idea
4. A group of approved mentors review and rank student proposals
Google approves a specific number of project slots for each mentoring organization using a process that isn't public so it isn't gamed

[cjakeman]

Hi Christopher,

 conductorchris, on 06 March 2014 - 07:42 AM, said:

I'm not sure, but I think google pays the student a stipend.

Website says $5,500.

Thanks for suggesting this. We've time to give it some thought before next Feb.

We've only a small degree at my university centre (75 computing students) but I heard last week from one of my own students that he was volunteering for the Google Summer of Code.