(Following is Eric Wilhelm's call for participation in Google Summer of Code.) -- Andy

The Perl Foundation is participating in Google's 2008 Summer of Code™ and we have a lot of capable, willing mentors looking forward to working with some talented, driven students. So, we would like you to help find those students (and quickly -- the students must apply before March 24th.)

This is a rare opportunity for students to get a chance to get a paid summer of hacking on exciting projects like Parrot, Perl 6, Moose, Jifty, SVK, Catalyst, or their very own Perl modules or applications. It also brings new talent into the community and gives the student a hefty "real world" experience with a knowledgable mentor. Further, employers love to see this sort of demonstration of teamwork, handling deadlines, communication skills, resourcefulness and etc.

We're looking for promising students who are interested in open source (or maybe you know someone who *should* be interested in open source.) Knowledge of Perl is optional if the project is Parrot-related. The student doesn't need to be an expert in the problem domain (after all, learning is part of the process), but should bring a big pile of creativity, problem-solving skills, and determination.

Students should review the page of suggested projects, encouraged to bring their own proposals (those are often the best.) The most important first step is getting in touch with the community and discussing their project idea with potential mentors.

Google has posted some flyers if you happen to have a university bulletin board or hallway handy:
http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code/wiki/GsocFlyers

Additional info:

http://www.perlfoundation.org/perl5/index.cgi?gsoc2008
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/
http://code.google.com/soc/2008/faqs.html

(Note that Google has particular requirements to do with the fact that they are paying the students. The student must be able to show their eligibility regarding enrollment and employability.)

Remember, the Perl community draws talent from many fields, so if you came to Perl from a non-computer-science major and still have contacts in that department from your university, it is probably worth mentioning to them.

Please feel free to forward this to whoever may be interested.