Are you working on an Open Source project you think would be perfect for a coding near-beginner to work on? What luck! RGSoC is accepting project submissions for the 2020 season starting from 06 January 2020 đ
Simply apply in the Teams App before 9am, Monday 10 February 2020 CET.
Get familiar with the basics
What makes a really good RGSoC project? Full details are available on our mentors page, which we recommend you read before applying.
There are some basic requirements. Keep in mind every project needs:
a mentor, the dedicated contact person for the team throughout the program
coaches (min 2, max 4) who offer students all-important day-to-day support
One thing you donât need to worry about is using Rails. Despite the name, Rails Girls Summer of Code is programming language agnostic. Former projects have used Python, Rust, and Javascript, to name a few.
What next?
After the deadline (9am, Monday 10 February 2020 CET, remember), our team will look through all the submissions and announce successful projects in early February. While not every project will be chosen for the program, we value every entry. The sheer variety of projects makes RGSoC such a rich and rewarding experience.
Selected projects should shout about it on Twitter and Facebook. Itâs a superb way to connect with students and get some love for your project.
In March and April, potential student contributors will have the chance to apply for the program and choose the project(s) they wish to work on. They may contact you (or whoever is the project mentor) for more details to make sure itâs the right project for them.
Using the Teams App
Sure, you know your way around a computer. Even so, we want to make it easy for you to apply with this step-by-step guide on how to add projects to the Teams App. Did we mention the deadline for submissions is 9am, Monday 10 February 2020 CET?
We canât wait to see what youâre working on. And if you know of a great project someone else is doing, point the maintainer in this direction and get the magic started.
Call us biased, but we think our volunteers are superstars. Rails Girls Summer of Code wouldnât be possible without their help and hard work.
Weâre now putting together a winning team for 2020. Whether youâre super organized or if your talents lie in programming, designing, writing, emotional support, legal know-how, campaign management, fundraising, or inspiring people, today weâre asking you to step up and join our team.
Donât forget - if youâre a former RGSoC student, you can still participate this time in a supporting role. Who better to guide newcomers than someone who has already enjoyed the experience?
Orga team
Organizers eat, sleep and breathe RGSoC. This is the small group of people who make sure the program runs smoothly. They have an intimate knowledge of how the program works and dedicate many, many hours to making it happen.
Thereâs no denying, being part of the Orga team can be a lot of work. Here are just some of the things we need to take care of to make sure our teams are informed, involved and cared for:
Writing, editing, posting, and scheduling newsletter, blog and social media posts
Creating eye-catching visuals - images and videos
Regularly communicating with mentors and students
Updating and maintaining the website and Teams App
Assessing, selecting and supporting suitable applications
Interviewing prospective students (and sharing good news)
Finding and inducting supervisors and Trust Committee members
Reaching out to sponsors and handling finances
Issuing fair stipends to teams in all areas of the globe
Collecting and distributing sponsors' swag
Telling everyone how awesome RGSoC is at meet-ups, in presentations, etc.
By reading this, youâve already taken your first step to becoming an RGSoC ambassador. Youâve got contacts - friends, family members, colleagues, sports club partners, penpals, project collaborators - we could never hope to reach alone. Spread the word about RGSoC and help us find key contributors to our 2020 team.
Make some noise on social media by sharing our posts on Twitter and Facebook. Donât forget to use the #RGSoC hashtag.
Be prepared
Weâll soon be launching calls for open source projects, student teams, and sponsors. Hereâs a sneaky bit of advice in advance to get you prepared:
Open source projects: if youâre a maintainer for a project you think would be suitable for our students to work on, start gathering together the details youâll need to upload it to our Teams App. The information youâll need to enter can be found here.
Student teams: youâll need to apply as a pair (2 students working together) - so find someone to team up with before submitting your application. Everything you need to know about being an RGSoC student can be found here.
Sponsors: alongside community members who donate to the crowdfunding campaign, our very generous sponsors fund the stipends that compensate student teams. Check out our enticing sponsorship packages. 100% of sponsorship and donations go to the students.
Still got questions?
Thereâs plenty of info on this site, but if you canât find what youâre looking for feel free to email us on contact@rgsoc.org or tweet us - after all, it may help others who have the same question.
Itâs back! Weâre thrilled to announce that Rails Girls Summer of Code (RGSoC) will return in 2020.
Following a brief hiatus last year, weâre looking forward to helping a whole new bunch of students jumpstart their careers in coding.
But first we want to thank everyone who made the 2018 program such a roaring success. This program can only happen thanks to the involvement of our diligent students and support from the many dedicated volunteers and generous donors. Each and every one of you helped make it an incredible year. A special and heartfelt âthank youâ goes out to Anika and Laura for everything they did to make RGSoC run so smoothly since day 1.
đThank you & good luck to Laura and Anika who have left Travis Foundation to pursue exciting new challenges. Their hard work on projects like @RailsGirlsSoC has improved the lives of so many underrepresented people in tech, which weâll continue in 2020 and beyondđȘ pic.twitter.com/JMYT3xH8gq
RGSoC champions underrepresented people in tech. Itâs our dream to make diversity more visible in Open Source by creating opportunities for women and people who identify as non-binary.
The concept is simple but effective. By connecting budding developers with volunteers in the field, RGSoC provides the chance to do, learn, and develop. Students receive a scholarship to work on an Open Source project full-time for three months (July-September) removing the financial barriers otherwise preventing them from pursuing a career (or career change) in coding.
Ultimately, this program acts as a springboard for future programmers and a more inclusive OSS community. In turn, participants become ambassadors for RGSoC and inspire others to take up coding.
What next?
Stay tuned! Each step of the way weâll be making announcements on social media and this blog. Whether youâre keen to be involved as a student team, or putting your expertise to good use in a volunteer role, weâll let you know how and when to get started.
Donât forget - if youâre a former student, you can always participate in 2020 as a volunteer. Who better to support newcomers than someone who has already benefited from the experience?
Weâll soon launch the call for open source projects. So, project maintainers, get your thinking caps on; would your project be suitable for our students to work on?
Early in the New Year the crowdfunding campaign will commence. We hope we can rely on your support.
Sponsorship packages have changed
Every cent from our fundraising campaign will directly fund studentsâ scholarships. This year weâre offering a choice of three sponsorship packages with dynamic new names and more attractive rewards. Check out the new sponsorship packages.
What about conferences?
In the past we collaborated with conferences all over the world, offering students a chance to attend for free. While recognizing the excellent opportunity for networking and development this offers, weâve decided not to run this part of the program in 2020.
However, you may be able to source tickets to conferences via our friends at Diversity Tickets.
How can I find out more?
In the meantime, click around our site for further information and feel free to email us on contact@rgsoc.org if you have any specific questions.
Donât forget to follow RGSoC on Twitter and Facebook. One of the most powerful ways for you to make a splash is by sharing our social media posts. Donât forget to use the #RGSoC hashtag.
2020 promises to be another exciting year. We hope youâll join us for the wild ride.
Even though weâre not organising RGSoC in 2019 in order to focus on our rebranding, we still want to support more diversity in open source and use our network to connect awesome people together. This is why weâre happy to share the following list of projects with our whole community! All 18 of them were submitted to us over the last months. Some of these projects are newcomers to the RGSoC community and some have been accepted into past editions; some are established, with a large community, while others are smaller and newer. What all of these projects have in common is their support of initiatives like ours and their interest in making their community more diverse and inclusive.
To get started contributing, read through the submissions, find a project that appeals to you, and contact the maintainers using the information provided or the commenting feature.
If youâre interested in even more projects, on our Teams app you can find an overview of our past projects from 2016, 2017 and 2018. For a deep dive into some of our past projects, you can also read the Open Source Project Spotlight posts on our blog.
This year most of our efforts will go towards our rebranding, but we are still committed to connecting awesome projects and underrepresented people in tech. For this reason, weâre opening submissions for open source projects! After reviewing them as weâve done in the last years, weâll publish a list with the accepted open source projects which we think are a good fit for underrepresented people from our community. While we cannot offer organisational or financial support this year, we hope that leveraging our network can help some motivated open source contributors find their match in the form of an inclusive and supportive project.
What will this look like?
Our project submission form is just like the form from the past years; once the deadline has passed (April 22nd, 23:59 UTC), weâll review all project submissions and âacceptâ the ones that seem fit for our community. This list will be officially published and shared at the end of April. Interested contributors from underrepresented groups can get in touch with maintainers by using the contact information provided or using the commenting feature. Weâre also making our community message board available to community members to find a team or a coaching company to support them.
Submit your project
Are you a project maintainer with some time to support open source newcomers? Thatâs awesome! You can find more information in our project mentor guide. If that seems like something youâd like to do this year, you can submit your project as follows:
Sign up for the Teams App (you will need to authenticate with GitHub)
Click on âSubmit your projectâ under âSummer of Codeâ in the navigation bar
Enter the name and information of the primary mentor
Add the projectâs name, website, repo and a description
To make sure prospective participants can get in touch with you, please add your preferred contact information (e.g. an email address) to the projectâs description
Add features, tasks and requirements
Add keywords, the name of your license, and a link to your Code of Conduct
Flag your project as âsuitable for beginnersâ if necessary
Click Submit!
We canât wait to share some of our favourite projects from the last few years and get to know new ones. Weâre looking forward to your application â and if youâre not a maintainer, but can think of a project youâd like to see on our list, ping them to apply or help us spread the word!
