Major League Hacking, GitHub Seek 100 Coding Interns

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 05/11/20

While many students have lost their internships for the summer over COVID-19 closures, a group of companies has come together to put coding students to work. Major League Hacking (MLH) and GitHub have announced a remote internship program to support young developers by getting them involved with coding projects. MLH operates student hackathons; GitHub, a division of Microsoft, provides version control for software development.

Program organizers are working with GitHub sponsors Facebook, the Royal Bank of Canada and DEV and hope to enlist other companies to increase the number of internships that can be made available.

Current plans for the "MLH Fellowship" envision putting 100 students to work on open source projects under the mentorship of experienced engineers in an inaugural 12-week program for summer 2020. Interns will be teamed up into virtual "pods" of eight to 10 students and paired with a mentor while learning the tools and skills required to participate in a global workforce. Students will receive a stipend for their participation through GitHub sponsors, allowing the organizers to serve 32 regions at launch.

The open source projects include work on React, Homebrew, Jest and DEV.

Applications are open until May 22, 2020, and applicants will hear back by May 24. Orientation will take place between June 1 and 7; work runs from June 8 to Aug. 23 and graduation takes place Aug. 24. Interns will participate in a "hack week" beginning July 13.

"Enabling students to spend their summer contributing to the software that runs the world is a unique opportunity for them," said MLH CEO Mike Swift, in an article about the program. "They'll work on meaningful projects with their peers under the guidance of some of the world's most talented engineers. The remote nature of this program will democratize access to internships for countless students worldwide."

An FAQ is available on the MLH website as is the application.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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