Palisadoes Selected for GSoC 2025

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The Palisadoes Foundation announces its acceptance into the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) as a mentoring organization. Palisadoes has been participating since 2021.

Established in 2005, the Google Summer of Code offers developers from around the world stipends to write code for various Open Source software projects. GSoC will run for nine months this year. The aim is to attract new contributors to be regular Open Source contributors

“From Summer to Autumn, many new contributors to our Talawa projects will benefit from this program. GSoC participants this year will include not only students but also industry professionals. This is an exceptional Google sponsored activity,” said Peter Harrison, President of the Palisadoes Foundation. “The program helps us to not only get some great code written, but also to introduce developers into Open Source development and hopefully recruit some new long-term Committers.”

Participants are encouraged to discuss ideas with mentoring organizations and finalize proposals for projects by the April 2 deadline. Palisadoes mentors have proposed numerous ideas for Talawa projects in mobile development, web applications, and practical API concepts. Participants may choose from the Talawa “Ideas Page” or suggest their own project for approval. The Talawa software repositories can be found on our organization’s GitHub page. The GSoC website has a complete timeline that you can review. Participants can learn more about our projects on the Talawa GSoC FAQ page.

“GSoC gives students the chance to work on industry-leading Open Source projects, collaborate with diverse communities, and gain real world experience related to their academic pursuits,” added Harrison. “We are proud to have mentored so many talented students over the years, and furthered our mission of providing software products for the public good. It’s a rewarding experience both for the students and the Talawa community at-large.”

Since 2016, The Palisadoes Foundation has actively participated in furthering the education of software engineering students through its various programs. The Calico Challenge, modeled on GSoC, has mentored over 30 Jamaicans attending local universities. Like GSoC, students received stipends upon achieving predefined goals when contributing to the Foundation’s GitHub projects.

“This second GSoC success would not have happened without the faith our Jamaican corporate sponsors had in our Calico vision. Their support since 2016 in terms of time, people and financing has been invaluable, ” Harrison explained, “The GSoC acceptance is a clear vote of faith from arguably the world’s largest software company. This is a huge global endorsement of Jamaican software development skills”

Details on the Google Summer of Code is available at: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/

About the Palisadoes Foundation

The California based Palisadoes Foundation aims to provide new avenues to promote Jamaica’s technology businesses and talent using a series of programs aimed at creating increased awareness of the island’s abilities in the global marketplace.

Meet Shaik Azad

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Azad is one of our 2024 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) participants working on our Talawa projects. He started participating earlier this year, and was formally accepted as a GSoC participant in May. He has been collaborating with other participants and mentors on his various GitHub pull requests.

Welcome Azad!

Hello everyone, I’m Azad, a final-year computer science undergraduate with a strong passion for building software solutions to everyday problems. I enjoy tackling challenges that seem chaotic and progressively breaking them down to find solutions, building the solutions interatively at each step. I strongly believe in learning by doing, which often leads me to put myself in tough situations, and that’s where I expand my skillset. This curiosity is what brought me to GSoC and open-source. Initially, open-source seemed very challenging, but that’s exactly what made it more intriguing and engaging for me.

My GSoC project, Talawa Offline Capability Enhancement, stems from my curiosity where I identified a gap in the Talawa mobile application and proposed it as a potential idea to the mentors. My project brings essential offline features that any modern, user-centric mobile app should have. Alongside this, I also lead a tech community at my college where we collaborate on projects, share knowledge, and explore exciting new ideas together. I’m also deeply interested in building startups and scaling the solutions we create.

Meet Ankit Varshney

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Ankit is one of our GitHub code maintainers. He’s been actively participating in the repository for the past year, starting with the refactoring of our Talawa code base to make it better support multiple organizations. In recent months Ankit has been providing further guidance on our strategy to migrate from Talawa’s MongoDB supported API, to a more suitable PostgreSQL back end database. Great work Ankit!

Hello! I’m Ankit Varshney, a tech enthusiast from India, currently pursuing my B.Tech in Computer Science & Engineering at AKGEC, Ghaziabad. I love building software solutions and turning ideas into reality!
My open-source journey began with Talawa, where I contributed to my first project. The thrill of taking on new issues, collaborating with others, and solving real challenges has been unmatched, marking the start of a fulfilling journey of growth and learning. I’ve gained valuable technical skills and coding practices as a contributor, continuously expanding my expertise.
In my spare time, I explore new technologies, engage in open-source contributions, collaborate with fellow tech enthusiasts, and participate in hackathons to push my boundaries. Outside of coding, I enjoy reading books.

I’m always eager to connect with like-minded individuals, so feel free to reach out!

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/Ankit-Varshney
GitHub: github.com/AVtheking