Google has announced the “Google Highly Open Participation Contest,” a new contest that aims to introduce secondary school and high school students to open source software development.
The contest, announced at the Open Source Developers Conference in Brisbane (Australia) aims to pick up where Google’s highly successful Summer of Code program finishes and comes complete with 10 “grand prizes” where winners get a trip to the Googleplex, and a variety of smaller prizes that includes cash and other incentives.
For the contest Google has joined forces with a variety of Open Source projects: The Apache Software Foundation, Drupal, GNOME, Joomla!, MoinMoin, Mono, Moodle, Plone, Python Software Foundation, and SilverStripe CMS. Each partner will provide a list of tasks the relevant project needs help with, including bug fixes, documentation and user experience research. Students claim ownership of a particular task and submit their work for assessment according to the instructions for each task. Work is then assessed against other contributions. The contest will assist development in the open source projects participating; a good thing for the many people who use these platforms, whilst the students gain experience in coding at a higher level.
The contest is now open and finishes January 22. Full details are available at the Google Highly Open Participation Contest page here.
Finally, Google is seeing the benefit of tapping the skills of precocious young techies.
These project is long overdue. Just remember how many brilliant HS students have been successful in the various well known science competitions over the past several decades. There are just as many brilliant geeks.
We have a very high profile one that has had many winners form New York City High Schools.
When I was in high school I was writing code for Pidgin (neé Gaim). Wish this was around then.
Google really supported OS for long – e.g. Google Code, Google Summer of Code etc.. Also see many contributions of Google’s engineers to various projects (such as Linux).
I am just not sure if their support for opensource makes up for the other fuckups. Generally, people who support/write opensource software are also aware of privacy and like to keep their data to themselves.
It’s really a two-prong strategy. Google gets good programmers and Microsoft loses more market share… It’s a win-win for everyone but M$!
Good for Humanity that software costs will not bloat and burn a hole in users pocket. I envision a future when all software will be prepackaged in a special tamper proof memory chip and shipped with the piece of hardware itself.
http://tekno-wo...ld.blogspot.com
Tapping the bet resources early, cheaply and before cannabalism comes in its good way to get the right people.. And if you are looking for a techie it is tradesman’s test which is not that rigorous and creative done in conventional hiring process.
It’s great that they’re giving the kids this opportunity. I only registered at OS a couple of weeks ago and, frankly, I wouldn’t mind having someone guide me through the possibilities.
I think this is a good idea.
The winners get a trip to the Googleplex, where they will be welcomed with softdrinks and snacks, after which they will be taken downstairs and chained to the dungeon underneath the Googleplex, where they will given opportunities to work on the next generation of Google products.
Is this GoogleCrunch or what?
On a positive note, anything that publicises and improves Open Source is great. It’s sensational that Google has such enthusiasm for Openness
Aren’t high school and secondary school the same thing?
Most tasks are a joke
I wish i were in school…
The name IS terrible, and I hope the tasks requiere some kind of effort, I mean, isn’t this just another great google MK operation?
As Anon said, very pro-active. But the name is awful.
How about Google SYPHON – Shape Young Programmers Hopes Over Night.
Horible name, good idea, poor implementation!
lol
the truth stings, don’t it?
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com