Tirupati student lands spot in Google’s mentorship programme ‘Summer of Code’

Vijayawada: Just weeks before the application deadline for Google’s prestigious Summer of Code (GSoC) programme, 19-year-old Gutha Sonika Chowdary thought her efforts had gone in vain.

The open-source organisation she had been contributing to announced its withdrawal from the programme, forcing her to start from scratch.Instead of giving up, the Tirupati student identified another organisation, rebuilt her proposal and eventually secured a place in GSoC 2026, Google’s global mentorship programme that connects students with leading open-source organisations to work on real-world software projects.This year, Google selected 1,141 contributors from 15,245 applicants representing 131 countries to work with 184 open-source organisations, making it one of the most competitive editions of the programme, according to the Google Open Source Blog.A second-year computer science student at NIAT, pursuing an online BSc in computer science course from BITS Pilani, Sonika was selected by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) to work on a project titled ‘Scalable Email Infrastructure for CDLI Framework’.

She is also working as a software development engineer (SDE) intern at NxtWave.“I started preparing only about one-and-a-half months before the deadline, while many applicants begin six or seven months earlier,” Sonika told STOI.She said balancing her internship with GSoC preparation was one of the biggest challenges. After completing work during the day, she would spend three to four hours every evening contributing to open-source projects, understanding large codebases, fixing software issues and submitting code contributions.

Sonika’s weekends were entirely dedicated to preparation.The biggest setback came during the contribution phase when the first organisation she had chosen withdrew from the programme. “I was back to square one. I searched for another organisation, learnt its codebase and prepared a fresh proposal. This time, I contributed to two organisations so that I had a backup,” she said.Selected candidates are required to submit a detailed project proposal after contributing to an organisation’s open-source projects.

Sonika said she revised her proposal several times after receiving feedback from mentors before submitting the final version.Asked what helped her succeed, she said consistency mattered more than trying to contribute to too many organisations. “Choose an organisation early, contribute regularly, stay in touch with mentors and understand the codebase well. Starting five to six months before the deadline also gives a big advantage,” she said.Sonika said she was both surprised and excited when the results were announced. “Getting selected in the first attempt is difficult,” she said.