Google Summer of Code

The Rust Project has been participating in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) program since 2024.

Runs:

• 2025: accepted projects, blog post announcement, results.
• 2024: accepted projects, blog post announcement, results.

If you would like to participate in GSoC, please take a look at the proposal guide, which should help you prepare your GSoC proposals.

Please do not harrass and/or spam Rust Project members and mentors, or other members of the Rust community! If you do so, we will not consider your proposal. It is fine to send a direct message (DM) to a mentor that you want to communicate with, but do not spam multiple people with DMs, asking them to be a mentor for your project proposal! Post a topic in some Zulip stream instead.

AI policy

In general, please examine the Guidance for GSoC Contributors using AI tooling in GSoC 2026 by Google and try to abide by its recommendations. We provide more recommendations on using AI for writing proposals and sending code contributions below. The TLDR is:

• Do not use AI to generate proposal text.
• If you use AI for your code contributions, let your mentor know about it and ensure that you fully understand the generated code.

Remember, we are interested in seeing your work and your thinking, since you are applying to do the project — not the AI!

Proposals

We would appreciate if you used your own words when writing GSoC project proposals. It is fine to use LLMs/AI for spellcheck, language correction or translation, but do not rely on AI to write the proposal for you. We will ignore proposals that look like they were generated by AI. Please don't submit AI-generated proposals! They won't be accepted, and will just create additional work for us.

Code contributions

If you plan to use AI significantly for implementing your proposal, in particular for generating code, you should let the project mentor know during the application process, prior to being selected for GSoC. So that you can confirm with them that they are OK with AI being used for the project's implementation.

In general, we would appreciate if you disclosed to your mentor, and also on opened PRs if and how you used AI for generating code. Note that you are still responsible for all the code that you produce and you should understand how it works.

Hardware access

The Rust Project can provide remote access to powerful cloud-based Linux machines to contributors that will be accepted for a GSoC Rust project. This can help overcome potential contribution barriers caused e.g. by an using an unsupported operating system or not having performant enough hardware.

Most Rust Embedded projects will require access to microcontroller boards of some kind. Costs of these are typically in the US$20 price range. While it is possible that the REWG might provide this hardware if needed, shipping costs and delivery times mean that it is most practical for the student to obtain the needed embedded hardware on their own. Similarly, a certain amount of equipment can be helpful (although rarely necessary) in working with embedded projects. The REWG will try to work with the student in these cases.