Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program, operating since 2005, which brings student developers into open source software development. Students work with different open source organizations in summer-long programming projects, closely supervised by mentors from the organization. Google pays students a stipend for this three-month program. The selection procedure is rigorous, where the organization mentors post project ideas on websites, students select ideas to work on, and develop project proposals in consultation with mentors and submit on GSoC website. Mentors evaluate and discuss the proposals, and recommend a few for acceptance to Google. Depending on the number of slots available (usually 1000–1200) every year, successful projects are announced. During the period of the program, students are evaluated by mentors and on approval, are paid the stipend directly.<br> Several organizations have hosted projects related to biodiversity informatics over the years. In 2010 and 2011, the Marine Biological Laboratory and Encyclopedia of Life executed some projects successfully. Since 2012, R-project organization has hosted various projects related to biodiversity data like rgbif (Chamberlain et al. 2017), rvertnet (Chamberlain et al. 2016), and bdvis the biodiversity data visualization package (Barve and Otegui 2016). Here we review the GSoC projects implemented in the domain of biodiversity informatics so far and wish to explore the involvement of TDWG as a potential mentor organization in future GSoC programs.
