Hi all:
NESCent is getting ready for participating in the 2009 Google Summer of Code. The skeleton for the project ideas page, along with a template for project ideas, is online:
http://hackathon.nescent.org/Phyloinformatics_Summer_of_Code_2009
A big part of the strength of our application as a participating organization comes from our project ideas and a diverse roster of primary and secondary mentors. If you have an idea for carving out a summer programming project for a student, and/or can fancy yourself mentoring a student, or are simply enthusiastic about helping out, for example as a backup mentor, please let me know, and I will send you a summary of how the Summer of Code program works in principle, as well as guidelines for how to become a mentor for us or help out in other ways.
For comparison purposes, previous years' ideas pages are here: http://hackathon.nescent.org/Phyloinformatics_Summer_of_Code_2008 http://hackathon.nescent.org/Phyloinformatics_Summer_of_Code_2007
As for supporting standards within the program, last year for example one of the funded projects was on phyloXML support in BioPerl.
Cheers,
-hilmar