I am a mentor for Google Summer of Code 2017

Today I have accepted the nomination to be a mentor at Google Summer of Code 2017 (GSoC) , for Systers organization. This is the non profit organization behind the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) annual conferences for women in technology and ABI.Local communities in your neighborhood across United States and spreading around the globe.

I have been involved with both these initiatives for many years: spoke at GHC 2015, and was a founding member of ABI.Silicon Valley community. My involvement keeps growing, by becoming a conference review committee member for 2017, and bringing yet more events to Silicon Valley chapter of ABI. But that is for another blog post.

You can find more about the Systers mission for GSoC here. Open source software developed during GSoC this year will provide Systers around the world better communication and collaboration tools.

Systers + GSoC, my awesome graphic created in MS Paint

I will be mentoring a student (who is yet to be identified) to build a new great mobile app for the community. This is really exciting, since:

1. Getting to know and work with a student on advancing his or her skills in mobile development will be really cool. The end product will make both of us, as well as Google Summer of Code committee and Systers proud we did this. 
2. It will be up to the student and the mentor to choose the tools and languages to build the open source app!
3. While I was a student myself in 2008, had applied for GSoC from Ann Arbor, it is great to return to the program as a mentor. 
4. I will get to meet mentors from around the world when the time for mentor summit comes this fall. Mentors come from a variety of backgrounds, different levels of skills and experiences, ranging from last year's students to industry veterans. We need this diversity. 
5. Having exposure to open source and doing good!