NZ company works with Google on further development

20 March 2012

NZ company works with Google on further development

New Zealand company SilverStripe will for the second time benefit from Google providing university students worldwide the chance to enhance its web software.

In 2007, SilverStripe was the first kiwi company to get into the annual “Google Summer Of Code” programme. Back then, the participation and the new features developed helped the company to gain global attention in time for the release of their second version. SilverStripe’s involvement with this year’s Google programme is again timed with a major release of their software.

Google is looking for 1,200 students to contribute features to 180 different open source projects. The programme takes place in the northern hemisphere’s summer between late May and August. Students spend upwards of 20 hours per week contributing to the open source project remotely from their home base.

SilverStripe will review proposals from students in April, and has offered a variety of project ideas to students, including making the software easier to use by disabled users, and personalising content to different website users. Experienced senior SilverStripe developers from inside and outside the company will mentor and support the students.

In addition to the experience and public awareness, Google rewards the participants with a US $5000 stipend. Interested students must apply by 6 April 2012.

SilverStripe CMS is a free software product used to build and manage websites. It has been downloaded approximately 500,000 times and powers websites for major corporations and government agencies in New Zealand and other countries.

ENDS

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