OSM has been accepted as a mentoring organization for this year’s Google Summer of Code, a global program that offers students and new open source developers stipends to write code for open source software projects.
If you’re interested in participating, visit our Google Summer of Code 2026 wiki page with guidance on what we like to see in applications. You can pick from our list of project ideas or come up your own idea related to one of the many open source projects in the OpenStreetMap ecosystem.
I have a question. Can we have discussion with mentor before the application period starts regarding our proposal? If yes, then Is it supposed to be done via their official mail id? Thanks.
Yes, you can and should interact with your potential mentors. The best communication channel may depend on your and the mentor’s preferences. On our project ideas page, most mentors will have their names linked to a page with more information about them, or mention a contact method directly.
Failing that, most mentors will have an OSM user account (which allows sending them direct messages through osm.org). If you can’t find a way to reach a particular mentor, feel free to reach out to OSM’s project orga at gsoc-orga@openstreetmap.org so we can help you make the connection.