Fwd: GSoC 2026: Call for GA4GH Projects
Jinny Park
From: Jimmy Payyappilly <jimmy.pa...@ga4gh.org>
Date: Fri, Jan 16, 2026 at 4:24 PM
Subject: GSoC 2026: Call for GA4GH Projects
To: Jimmy Payyappilly <jimmy.pa...@ga4gh.org>
Cc: Secretariat <Secre...@ga4gh.org>, GSoC Mentors 2025 <gsoc-men...@ga4gh.org>, GSoC Mentors 2024 <gsoc-men...@ga4gh.org>, Andy Yates <aya...@ebi.ac.uk>
Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global programme that brings student developers into open source software development. Students work with one or more mentors from an open source organisation on a three month programming project over the summer.
As in previous years, GA4GH will apply to participate in GSoC 2026. GA4GH community members have found the experience of mentoring students through impactful GA4GH-related projects valuable and rewarding. GSoC participants (students) usually work on new tools or libraries that mentors wish to develop, but don’t have the bandwidth to complete themselves.
You may find the full list of GA4GH's past GSoC projects below:
Mentors:
GA4GH members who design a project and supervise a student on the completion of that project are known as mentors. Mentors should share their project proposals with the GA4GH GSoC organisation administrators, listed below.
If you would like to be a mentor for a GA4GH project:
Read more about the GSoC programme and how it works, especially the timeline and mentor guide.
Using the defining a project page as a guideline, develop proposals for projects you’d be willing to mentor a student on.
Submit your proposal(s) to your org admins here, who will either ask for additional clarification or submit them.
Organisation Administrators:
Organisation administrator(s) will submit the GA4GH org application to Google, along with the project proposals that mentors provide. Org admins will also field any questions or concerns, should any issues arise. GA4GH org admins for this year's GSoC are:
Jimmy Payyappilly: jimmy.pa...@ga4gh.org (Primary)
Justina Chung: justin...@ga4gh.org (Secondary)
Important note:
- GA4GH (and Google too) is looking to support more AI/ML and security projects this year in GSoC. Please keep this in mind when creating your project ideas. I will indicate if the project is related to AI/ML or security in the ‘Org topics’ section on the org profile. Some projects may have a different primary focus, but we would like to have a handful of AI/ML or security focused projects in our submission.
- We are keen to also invite applications for projects from mentor(s) who are participating in this programme for the first time. So, please share this information in your collaborator groups and GA4GH communities. Note that GSoC has conditions on how many projects a mentor can undertake as well as the number of mentors per project. Details can be found in mentor guide.
- The deadline for submission of project ideas is 30th January 2026 @ 18:00 UTC. The project list document will be uneditable after the deadline. From 30th January to 3rd February, the org admins will review the projects and ensure only those that fulfill GSoC guidelines are part of GA4GH's submission.
Some closing notes:
The organisation application deadline is due 3rd February, 2025 @ 18:00 UTC. Please have your project proposals in before then.
Project proposals must include a relatively detailed timeline that can be clearly mapped to the goals. "3 June - 3 July: Design and implement XYZ" does not give you any real information about their plans.
Students are required to commit a total of 175 hours on their project over a 12-week period in the summer. There is flexibility in how the work can be spread over this period. Mentors and students can decide how best to do this for their circumstances and commitments.
Multiple mentors can be assigned to a single project, however, a person can’t be a primary mentor for more than 1 project.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to your organisation administrators regarding any questions you have.
On behalf of GA4GH org admins,
Best regards,
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