2 posts tagged with "GSoC"

Welcome to the January 2026 edition of the Cloud Native Project Monthly (CNPM) Newsletter.

In 2025 we saw continued project growth, with the TOC accepting an additional six projects to close out the year. The speed at which projects join the CNCF and advance through levels has improved thanks to better processes, and we've expanded the variety of services available to maintainers through new partnerships with providers. We are committed to serving our 2,000+ maintainers and 300,000+ contributors even better in 2026.

Please take a moment to complete the 2H 2025 Maintainer Survey. Your feedback is vital for us to serve you better this year. The survey will close on January 30th, so please respond as soon as you can!

• Google Summer of Code 2026 opportunities
• Please take the Maintainer Survey
• KubeCon+CloudNativeCon 2026 – Scholarships & Travel Funding Deadlines
• KubeCon+CloudNativeCon 2026 – Maintainer Summit & Travel Info
• Call for Kubernetes AI Conformance applications and reference architectures
• GitHub Copilot guidance
• Docker Hardened Images are now free for projects
• CNCF Projects Calendar Migration
• Help us help you
• See you next month

The CNCF LFX Mentorship 2026 Term 1 (March - May) is open for project proposals. Since 2020, 25 LFX mentee alumni have gone on to become CNCF project maintainers. This is a great opportunity to grow your contributor community.

CNCF LFX Mentorship 2026 Term 1 Mar-May

Key LFX dates:

• Project Proposals Open: Wednesday, January 7 – Tuesday, January 20, 2026
• Mentee Applications Open: Monday, January 26 – Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 11AM PST (19:00 UTC)
• Application Review Period: Wednesday, February 11 – Tuesday, February 24, 2026, 11AM PST (19:00 UTC)

In addition to LFX, the CNCF is planning on being a Mentoring Organization again this year for Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and can help projects looking to participate in the program. This is a fantastic opportunity to increase your project's contributor community and get valuable work done!

In 2026, GSoC is actively looking to bring in more projects in the areas of Security and AI/ML.

GSoC 2026 Announcement

CNCF Project GSoC 2026 Ideas

Key GSoC dates:

• Organizations application period: Monday, Jan 19, to Tuesday, Feb 3, 2026
• CNCF Project proposals submissions recommendation: Wednesday Jan 14, 2026
  • Note, proposals can still be submitted after this recommended date, but the Mentorship team needs time to evaluate the proposals and package our application. The more proposals we have, the stronger our org application will be.

We're looking forward to seeing all the project ideas you're interested in working on!