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Google is seeking college applicants for its seventh annual Google Policy Fellowships program, which offers students unique opportunities to work on Internet and technology policy matters in locations around the world while on summer break.
Applications for this summer’s 10-week program must be received by Google by 3 a.m. ET on April 15, according to the program’s organizers. The selected program participants will be notified April 28 and will begin their fellowships in May or June.
This year’s Google Policy Fellowship program was unveiled by the fellowship team in a March 20 post on the Google Public Policy Blog. Applications are open immediately for fellowships in North America and Latin America; additional fellowship opportunities in Asia, Africa and Europe will be coming soon, according to organizers.
“The Internet policy world is ripe with fascinating policy issues,” the post states. “From government surveillance and data security to patent reform and copyright to free expression and open access to information, there has never been a more exciting time to get involved.”
The Google Policy Fellowship program connects “students of all levels and disciplines with organizations working on the forefront of these and other critical issues for the future of the Internet,” according to the post.
This year, fellowships will be offered with groups, including the American Library Association, the National Consumers League, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Open Technology Institute with the New America Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Global Network Initiative, the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic, the Technology Policy Institute, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Internet Education Foundation.
Students must be 18 years of age or older by January 1, 2014, and be enrolled as a full- or part-time student in an accredited university or college as an undergraduate or graduate student to participate in Google Policy Fellowship program in 2014. They also must be eligible and authorized to work in the country of their fellowship.
Google will provide a stipend of $7,500 to each Fellow for the summer as part of the program.
The Google Policy Fellowship program was inspired by Google’s Summer of Code program, which invites college students to learn about the world of open-source code development, according to Google. The Summer of Code, which invites college students to learn about the world of open-source code development, began in 2005 and celebrates its 10th year in 2014. So far, the program has involved some 8,500 college and university students from more than 100 countries who have created more than 50 million lines of code since the program’s start.
Under the Google Policy Fellowships program, “Fellows will be assigned a lead mentor at their host organizations and will have the opportunity to work with several senior staff members over the course of the summer,” according to the group. “Fellows will be expected to make substantive contributions to the work of their organization, including conducting policy research and analysis; drafting reports and analyses; attending government and industry meetings and conferences; and participating in other advocacy activities.”
Applicants should be “passionate about technology and want to spend the summer diving headfirst into Internet policy,” according to Google.
Google Seeks Applications for Its Policy Fellowships Summer Program
Google has long been active in offering fellowship and awards programs to encourage innovation and new thinking.
In August 2013, Google named the winners of 105 Google Research Awards for computer science projects that will be conducted by graduate students around the world. The biannual Google Research Awards are presented for winning proposals on computer science-related topics, including machine learning and structured data, policy, human computer interaction and geo/maps. The grants cover tuition for a graduate student and will allow faculty and students to collaborate directly with Google scientists and engineers on their projects. Google received 550 proposals from 50 nations around the world for the awards, and from those, 105 projects were funded.
In June 2013, Google announced the recipients of its 2013 Ph.D. Fellowship program, which the search giant promotes as a way to gain new insights and innovations from some of the best minds in colleges and universities around the world. Google launched its Ph.D. Fellowship Program in 2009 to recognize and support outstanding graduate students who were pursuing work in computer science, related disciplines or promising research areas.
In February 2013, Google sought applicants for its sixth annual Google Policy Fellowship Program, which brings interested college and university students together to spend their summers immersed in the world of Internet policy as Google Policy Fellows.
Also in February 2013, Google awarded its first Google App Engine Research Awards to seven projects that will use the App Engine platform’s abilities to work with large data sets for academic and scientific research. The new program, which was announced in the spring of 2012, brought in many proposals for a wide variety of scientific research in subjects such as mathematics, computer vision, bioinformatics, climate and computer science.