Palisadoes Selected for GSoC 2023

The Palisadoes Foundation announces its acceptance into the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) as a mentoring organization. Palisadoes previously participated in 2021 and 2022.

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 4 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.

Getting Ready for Calico and GSoC

The Palisadoes Foundation met virtually with with students at the University of the West Indies (UWI). The following presentation was made to members of the UWI Computing Society club.

Preparing for GSoC 2023

Palisadoes Foundation volunteers Tasneem Koushar and Anwer Sayeed discuss their experiences with Google Summer of Code last year and give excellent tips for those planning to participate in 2023. The topics of this video include:

  • When to get started for GSOC?
  • How to find an organization for you?
  • How to start contributing?
  • How to make a proposal?
  • How to increase your chances of getting selected?
  • GSoC goals
  • GSoC stipends
  • What are the benefits of getting selected?
  • Getting ready for GSoC 2023
  • Open-source organizations you can start with

Meet Siddhesh Bhupendra Kukade

Siddhesh is one of our 2022 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) students working on our Talawa projects. He started participating earlier this year, and was formally accepted as a GSoC student in May. He has been collaborating with other students and mentors on his various GitHub pull requests.

Welcome Siddhesh!


Siddhesh Bhupendra Kukade is a 2nd Year IT Student from PVGCOET Pune, India. He has also completed a Diploma degree in IT from Government Polytechnic, Nashik He currently works mainly with Javascript along with its libraries like ReactJS, NodeJS and Flutter Framework.

Apart from work, he likes to watch cartoons, comedy shows, etc. He is a very dedicated person and likes to solve problems in any way possible. He feels very grateful for being a part of the Palisadoes Foundation through the Google Summer of Code 2022 program.