GitHub launches three new programs for developers, students and startups to boost open-source development in India

During its Satellite India event held on Friday, GitHub announced that it was launching three new programs for students, developers and startups at the code hosting and collaboration platform’s two-day virtual event.

GitHub COO Erica Brescia said that the first program is aimed at developers in the country called the GitHub Open Source Grants program, which will offer ₹1 crore in grants to open-source ‘extremely valuable’ projects that set the bar high for innovation in the country and further the goal of increasing contributions to open-source software around the globe, the company stated.

In a country where software developers are constantly updating themselves and eager to put their skills to good use and contribute to open source projects, GitHub says that last year, the number of students that participated in its GitHub Campus program increased by a whopping 142 percent. Meanwhile, its Student Developer Pack saw over one lakh signups and over a hundred colleges in India adopted the company’s campus offering.

The company will now offer GitHub Externships in the country, to give students a chance to interface with companies in the country by facilitating fellowship programs so they can gain skills and the ability to succeed in an enterprise environment. This will benefit students joining companies fresh out of college who want to know more about the organisations they want to work for in the future.

During a discussion held after the event, GitHub India's country head Maneesh Sharma explained that the company's partnerships with colleges and higher educational institutions would help students who wanted to get started with open-source technology software, through summer programs. Sharma also said that the company had seen contributions from Indian users in projects including but not limited to — machine learning, data warehousing, development of Android and other operating systems and much more.  

The third program launched by GitHub on Friday was actually an extension of its successful Github Accelerate program that was launched last year and saw almost 200 startups (including AirMeet, Kawa Space, and ClearQuote) sign up for the pilot program. The company is now extending GitHub Accelerate to startup accelerators, incubators and more venture partners - which means the program’s eligibility has now been widened to accommodate over a thousand new startups this year.

Brescia also stated that over 1.8 million new developers from the country had joined GitHub over the past year, which brings the number of developers on the platform from India up to 5.8 million. But the platform’s metrics have shown an uptick in other areas too — contributions from Indian users on GitHub rose by 75 percent over the past year as opposed to 40 percent for the rest of the world, the company stated.

This announcement follows GitHub's recent partnership with National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) as part of the latter’s FutureSkills program, which is working towards upskilling the current IT workforce, with a goal of two million from the current workforce and another two million from those fresh out of college. GitHub says this will bring the Student Developer Pack and the Campus Program to teachers, institutes and students, that are affiliated with NASSCOM, while those startups who are part of NASSCOM’s incubator initiatives will also be able to access the GitHub Accelerate program.

The company has also dubbed India the fastest growing country on the platform in terms of contributions made to open source projects, after one million developers from the country created their first repository on the platform. While the company is yet to touch the 6 million mark in terms of Indian developers on the platform, it said that it expects the number to rise to 10 million by 2023.