Matt [Danger]

Leslie Hawthorn, a member of Google’s Open Source team and manager of the Summer of Code program, sent an email yesterday announcing the beginning of the 2009 Google Summer of Code program.

The program is currently accepting applications from open source organizations who would like to mentor students. We have submitted an application for the Geeklog project and hope to participate again this year. Other organizations can submit an application using Google’s new App Engine.

If you’re a student developer I strongly encourage you to participate in the program. I was fortunate enough to work with the Geeklog project the past two summers and the experience was invaluable. Both years I was mentored by Dirk Haun, the Geeklog project maintainer and lead developer. The software planning, design, and development skills I learned from him far surpassed my expectations. This year I’m excited to give back to the program and share what I’ve learned with a student by mentoring one of the Geeklog projects. We have a few things to finalize with Geeklog to get the project and documentation ready for new student developers but things are coming along nicely.

The application deadline for organization applications is Friday, March 13th. The list of accepted organizations and projects will be posted on Monday, March 23rd. That’s when the students get to begin writing and submitting their project proposals.

I plan on posting a guide on writing a good student project proposal soon.