Dear all,

----  please forward this call to potentially interested mentors in your network! ---

INCF will apply to be a mentor organization in Google Summer of Code for the 13th time running.

Important: Interested mentors need to contact us on gsoc@incf.org as early as possible with a declaration of interest and a short summary of the intended project. The deadline for expressions of interest is  January 10. Full project descriptions need to be submitted by January 17.

We are calling for open source software development project ideas with some sort of neuro connection - fixes or extensions to big/broadly applicable or small/niche tools used by neuroscience researchers, efforts and initiatives in the broad field of computational neuroscience. If your project supports or implements INCF endorsed standards or best practices, we especially encourage you to apply. 

NB: There have been some changes to the program in recent years.
These are the conditions for the 2023 program:

• Flexibility in project lengths: a project can run for a duration of 10-22 weeks. The standard length is 12 weeks, but projects can be planned for a longer duration at the start, and they can be extended (by the org admin) on request during the program.
  
  

• Choice of project time commitment:  a project can be one of two sizes, either large (350 h) or medium (175 h). Google will want to us to apply with a good mix of large and medium project sizes.
  
  To give us a good chance of achieving a good mix, everyone submitting at least two project ideas will be asked to include both half-time and full-time projects (or at least one flexible project where the duration can be either large or medium, to be decided by mentor and contributor).

• Contributions are open to students AND to beginners in open source software development.

Also, the usual reminder: there is no guarantee that INCF will be accepted as a mentoring organization this year; Google announces the accepted organizations in February. Please be clear with this in your communication with potential contributors.

The timeline will be a bit earlier than last year. Org applications will open January 23 and close February 7, with accepted organizations announced February 22. We aim to have a live Project Ideas list latest mid January.

Reminder: Interested mentors need to contact us on gsoc@incf.org as early as possible with a declaration of interest and a short summary of the intended project. The deadline for expressions of interest is  January 10. Full project descriptions need to be submitted by January 17.

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Submission instructions

Each project idea submission should come by email to gsoc@incf.org and contain:

1) An informative title with relevant keywords (good-to-have: name of tool/project, name of programming language(s) or tools used)

2) A project description including a brief general intro, motivation, aims, scope and skills/skill level needed. Please make sure to clearly state

• the planned effort (175 h, 350h or flexible)

• the intended skill level (beginner, novice, intermediate, advanced) 

• the list of prerequisite skills the contributor will need to have

• 2-5 tech keywords (Python, C++, Java, SQL, REST, CUDA, ...)

For submissions with two or more project ideas, please include at least one project of each size (175 or 350 hours) or at least one project idea with flexible duration.

3) Name and email address of at least one lead mentor + one named co-mentor/backup mentor (a person who would be able and willing to back the main mentor up in mentoring in case something unforeseen happens). There can be more than one lead mentor, as long as you are internally clear on who does what.

4) Any planned longer absences during the lead up/student interaction period (February - April) or the project period (May - August), and your plan for covering them.

5) Format: your choice - txt, doc, docx, pdf or a link to a webpage with the full description(s). Anything that can be copied and pasted!