It's that wonderful time of the year when Google Code-In students (ages 13-17) work on tasks for Drupal. Starting on Monday December 1st, hundreds of students from around the world will be contributing tasks to open source organizations competing to win an all expense paid trip to visit Google in California. Luckily Drupal was invited back by Google to participate in 2014 and timing could not be better with the beta releases of Drupal 8. Thanks Google!

The Code-In contest will end January 19th 2015 and Drupal has an awesome chance to connect with the youth of computer programming. Did you know that many of Drupal's top contributors started in Google Summer of Code and/or Code-In? Even if you don't have ideas for tasks, nor want the responsibility of being a mentor, please hangout on IRC in #drupal-google to help students and prepare for a flood of questions in #drupal-contribute.

Drupal gained priceless experience and contributions in GCI 2013. We're proud to note that several students even became Drupal 8 core contributors. In addition to helping Drupal during GCI, a few students have continued contributing to our community after the contest. A final congratulations to our 2013 winners areke and royal121, we thank you for all your hard work. Moving forward we're excited to continue our momentum of contributing to Drupal while having fun educating the next generation of developers.

How can the Drupal community participate? Drupal needs help until the end of contest in January. It is not too late to help. We need task ideas and of course we're always looking for additional mentors. Maybe you can help us by promoting GCI to social media or mentioning it to colleagues? Did we mention you don't have to be a mentor to create tasks? Learn how to add tasks and become a mentor in details below.

How to become a Drupal GCI Mentor

• Log into Melange with Google account @ http://www.google-melange.com/gci/profile/register/org_member/google/gci2014
• Click "Register to be a Mentor"
• Connect with Drupal (wait for approval)
• Contact Slurpee on d.o if issues

How to Add Drupal GCI Tasks

• Add tasks to bottom of our spreadsheet in lowest open task number @ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sFf5wnuCSkNauNw26-Kml0snplF4Fx0jtw5xGWNSUeY/edit#gid=1582128900
• Add a Title and Description
• Time is number of hours to complete (usually a few days)
• Enter mentor/s name same as username in Melange
• Tasks may be part of multiple categories based on (Code, Documentation/Training, Outreach/Research, Quality Assurance, User Interface)
• Tags to help students find certain types of tasks

Important Links

• Google's GCI Homepage - http://www.google-melange.com/gci/homepage/google/gci2014
• Drupal's GCI Homepage - https://groups.drupal.org/google-code-in
• GCI FAQ - http://www.google-melange.com/gci/document/show/gci_program/google/gci2014/help_page
• GCI Announcement - http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2014/11/get-scoop-on-mentoring-organizations.html

More information will be available as the contest gets started. Subscribe to gdo/code-in to hear the latest updates. More info soon.