Announcing OpenMined Google Summer of Code 2021

Shaistha Fathima -

We’re are very excited to announce that OpenMined was yet again selected as a mentor organization for Google Summer of Code (GSoC 2021)! This post contains information for students interested in participating in the program. GSoC applicants are welcome to propose other interesting ideas as well and check if a mentor can help take ideation further. If you propose a project of your own, please message in the #gsoc channel on OpenMined's Slack.

About OpenMined

We strive to lower the barrier of entry to privacy-preserving technology.

OpenMined is an open-source and not-for-profit community of over 11,000 academics, engineers, mentors, educators, ethicists and privacy enthusiasts committed to making a fairer more prosperous world by building and teaching privacy enhancing technologies.

Our engineering team builds and curates an ecosystem of open-source privacy enhancing tools that span techniques including homomorphic encryption, secure enclaves, federated learning, differential privacy, zero knowledge proofs and much more.

We have developed and published courses on privacy, available at courses.openmined.org in collaboration with the United Nations, Oxford University and PyTorch. Our guest speakers include privacy technology titans including Cynthia Dwork (co-inventor of Differential Privacy), Helen Nissenbaum (Context Integrity), Sameer Wagh (lead author of FALCON) and Glen Weyl (Author of Radical Markets and Quadratic Voting).

OpenMined also works closely with industry to solve real-world privacy problems. We are currently investigating projects that will provide great social impact to the world. There is no time like the present to get involved with OpenMined. Join the movement now on Slack.

First Steps

If you are new to our community you can familiarize yourself with our codebase by checking our PySyft examples here. PySyft has also been explained in the following videos on YouTube:

Join us on Slack

Join our slack workspace here, introduce yourself and start the discussion! We've already created a dedicated channel: #gsoc. For other issues / questions, please feel free to introduce yourself in the #introductions channel and ask question in the #beginners or #support channel.

We also encourage you to sign up for the Private AI Series (courses.openmined.org) where you will have the Technical Mentor and Community Support.

Required Skills

With some exceptions (specified in the project description), interested students will need the following skills:

  • Knowledge of Python, Rust, JavaScript and proficiency in deep learning framework, such as PyTorch.
  • Familiarity (or willingness to become familiar) with PySyft and/or PyGrid

Please check GSoC 2021 Projects section for a detailed list of required skills for each project.

Applying to OpenMined GSoC 2021

  1. In order to apply, you first must complete a "Good First Issue" within our community. Find any GitHub Issue within one of our repositories (https://github.com/OpenMined) marked with the "good-first-issue" label and complete it. Once your PR is merged, you will include the link to your merged PR in your application.
  2. After completing a "good-first-issue" you may peruse our GSoC Project Ideas and select a project you like or you may propose a project of your own. If you propose a project of your own, please let us know in the #gsoc channel on Slack.
  3. Once you have merged your first (good-first-issue) PR and have selected a project, you may fill out the OpenMined GSoC application form to formally submit your application. The best way to set yourself apart as an applicant for a project is to begin working on the project (ideally as a collaboration with the project mentor).

Note: Proposals will be accepted starting 29th March, 2021 through 13th April, 2021.

GSoC 2021 Projects

Project proposals are listed here. Reach out to each project's mentor on OpenMined's Slack if you have questions about a specific project. In conclusion, please remember that in accordance with the GSoC process, not every applicant is guaranteed to be funded by GSoC.

And a final note, join us for GSoC, but stay to support us in the movement to make privacy-preserving AI more accessible!