Join IOOS’ Google Summer of Code 2026 application - call for mentors by Feb 02. We need your help!
Mathew Biddle - NOAA Federal
Join IOOS and mentor a student for Google Summer of Code 2026!
IOOS plans to apply for our fifth year as a Google Summer of Code (GSoC) mentoring organization in 2026. To have the best chance of being re-accepted, we need as many quality projects ideas and mentors from our extended DMAC community (you!) to include in our application by the Feb 02 deadline.
For more information about being a GSoC mentor, please review IOOS’ GSoC Mentor Guide at https://github.com/ioos/gsoc/blob/main/mentor-guidance.md.
Please note: you don’t need to be affiliated with IOOS directly to participate - if your software is open source and is used for oceanography or ocean data management, we’re happy to include your project ideas as part of our application as an oceanography community-oriented GSoC mentoring organization. If accepted for this year’s program, we’ll do our best to ensure a diverse set of projects are put forward to receive funding for student/contributor stipends by Google.
Submit your project idea for GSoC 2026 by filling out this GitHub form: https://github.com/ioos/gsoc/issues/new?template=gsoc-project-proposal.yml.
Draft or initial project ideas are OK. Project ideas need to include basic background information (project description and purpose, expected skills, mentor names), but it’s a fairly easy lift to propose a new project. If IOOS is accepted for the 2026 program, project ideas can be further refined or improved over the next month until the contributor application period begins in March.
Multiple mentors can mentor a single contributor project, so teams of mentors are encouraged, however it is recommended that an individual mentor only mentor one project.
Submitting multiple project ideas at this time is encouraged, if you have several in mind. During the project ranking phase in April each mentor will have to select a single project to put forward for assignment of a ‘slot’ (or funding for your selected contributor/project) by Google, so you will need to select one contributor and project at that time if you submitted more than one during the initial application phase.
Please submit your project ideas by Monday Feb 02 to allow us to organize our application by the deadline on the 3rd, and reach out to Micah (micah....@noaa.gov), Matt (mathew...@noaa.gov), or Filipe (oce...@gmail.com) to discuss your project ideas or with any other GSoC questions.
Thank you! Apologies for any cross-postings.
Micah, Matt, Filipe
Additional GSoC Background:
Information about IOOS’ previous involvement with GSoC, including past projects, contributors, and mentors, is available in the https://github.com/ioos/gsoc repository.
GSoC 2026 includes three sizes of student projects (the time they’ll have to complete it): small at ~90 hours, medium at ~175 hours, large at ~350 hours. Project ideas can be proposed for any of the three sizes - use your best estimate for how long it should take a student to complete the project in determining the size - make sure they are likely to have enough hours to complete it, but don’t default to the largest size as Google must balance the overall number of project hours they sponsor each year.
See the following links for more useful information about the GSoC program:
GSoC 2026 program announcement: https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/12/shape-future-with-google-summer-of-code.html
GSoC 2026 timeline: https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/timeline
Defining project ideas: https://google.github.io/gsocguides/mentor/defining-a-project-ideas-list
Tips for mentoring: https://google.github.io/gsocguides/mentor/what-makes-a-good-mentor