Brasilians in Google Summer of Code

It's well known that the Brasilian free software community is vibrant and thriving, and we're excited by the trends of Brasilian participation in Summer of Code. In 2005, 2.2% of participants in the program were Brasilian, growing to 2.5% in 2006. This year, 4.2% of accepted students are Brasilian. Many thanks to our former students, Adriano Monteiro Marques and Felipe Portvales Goldstein for the presentations on Summer of Code and other evangelism they have done at their universities, which no doubt contributed to the increased number of Brasilians who have joined us this year.

Also of interest, while we only had one Brasilian student participate in GSoC 2005 and 2006, we have three students who completed the program in 2006 return again this year.

We have even more exciting news on the mentor side, though; we have over 20 Brasilians this year who have signed up to be mentors, six of whom were students in 2005 or 2006. We're very pleased to see these students offering the knowledge they've gained through Summer of Code back to the community.

We've gotten feedback from the community that it is difficult for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere to participate in Summer of Code, and we acknowledge that balancing the demands of school and additional coding projects can be challenging. We're pleased to see that so many Brasilian students are accepting the challenge and joining us this year!