This year's Google Code-In started on December 2nd. This is the tenth event since it started in 2010 and is expected to be the biggest yet of this seven-week long global online contest in which students aged 13 through 17 from around the world are introduced to open source development.

Google Code-in (GCI) is a unique opportunity for students to work on real open source software projects and for open source projects to gain extra help as well. Over the past nine years, more than 11,000 students from 108 countries have successfully completed over 55,000 tasks in GCI and this year 29 organizations, all of which have participated in Google Summer of Code, are devising over 2,500 task for teenager to choose to work on. 

The tasks, which are designed to take from 3-5 hours are not restricted to originating code. The five categories are: 

• Code: writing or refactoring.
• Documentation/Training: creating/editing documents and helping others learn more.
• Outreach/Research: community management, outreach/marketing, or studying problems and recommending solutions.
• Quality Assurance: testing and ensuring code is of high quality.
• Design: graphic design or user interface design.

The reason that Google select organizations that have already participated in Google Summer of Code is because they have gained experience in mentorship and know how to provide a support system for new, young contributors.The fact that students have mentors available to help answer their questions as they work on each of their tasks is credited as being responsible for the recent success of GCI, see Google Code-In Grows.

As GCI is a contest there are prizes:

• Participants who complete at least 1 task are awarded a digital certificate.

• Participants who complete 3 or more tasks receive a t-shirt - unless they live in a country subject to US export restrictions.

• At the end of the contest, each organization will choose six finalists to receive limited edition Google Code-in hoodies

• Two from each organization will win the Grand Prize Trip -  an expenses-paid visit to Google Headquarters in California.

To select the finalists, each open source organization reviews the work of the 20 students with the highest number of completed tasks. Work will be reviewed considering quality, creativity, thoroughness, complexity, and community involvement. This means it is possible that someone who completed 15 challenging tasks could be chosen as a Grand Prize Winner over someone who completed 35 trivial tasks. The trip includes the opportunity for students to meet with one of the mentors they worked with during the contest and take part in an awards ceremony.

Google Code-In 2019 lasts until January 23, 2020. If you are between 13 and 17 and meet the eligibility criteria (see Contest Rules) there is still plenty of time to register, join in, contribute to open source software and win prizes.

More Information

Google Code-In

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Google Code-In 2016 Progress Report

Google Code-In 2016 Underway

Google Code-In 2014 Announced

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