Today is the day for Google Summer of Code "Accepted Organizations", and I got the extremely kindly written rejection notice for Open Research Institute's application a few minutes ago. There are a *lot* more organizations applying than spots, this was our first year, and we will 100% try again.
Also, there are also designated "umbrella" groups that we can potentially move underneath and still participate. I'm going to reach out and see if we can't get that rolling! If you know of one that would be a good match, let me know.
This is the first year applying, and it resulted in the creation of a much more publicly accessible list of project content than we had with the task board on GitHub.
So, we are going to fully use this list and tackle all the jobs! The content will go straight over the The Ham Calling, a new site designed specifically for connecting high-tech ham work with high-tech hams!
Here's the current lineup: https://openresearch.institute/google-summer-of-code-2020/
I'm writing up an article for the Journal as well.
What other projects do you think should be added? This list best serves as a "base" of potential work to advance the radio arts in the community.
Thank you very much to those that volunteered to be mentors! Several of you volunteered to be mentors for the first time, ever. That is a big step and greatly appreciated.
In several cases, hams contacted me with anxiety over being "technical enough" to mentor students. Yes, some of these projects are complex, but mentorship is much much more than being able to answer a student's technical questions. Being supported while taking risks, learning about amateur satellite operation, learning about the amateur "code", and how to fail and start over or roll back to what most recently worked - these are foundational things.
Encouragement and steady support are, in the long run, of greater value than being able to substitute in for a Wikipedia article on FEC.
Next year, assuming things continue to improve, TAPR, AMSAT, and ARRL will all apply to be mentoring organizations along with ORI and GNU Radio and others. Amateur radio is uniquely qualified to serve a meaningful and significant role in open source technical advancement, and I cannot wait to see the future results.
-Michelle W5NYV