The OSPO Summer 2026 Internship Program is officially underway, and we are excited to welcome this year’s cohort of talented students and emerging open source contributors.

Running from June 1, 2026, through August 7, 2026, the program brings together 12 interns who will spend the summer collaborating on 10 unique projects that support and advance open source. Throughout the next ten weeks, interns will work alongside mentors, engage with open source communities, and contribute meaningful code, documentation, research, and other project deliverables.

This year’s projects span a diverse range of technical and community-focused areas, providing interns with opportunities to deepen their skills while making lasting contributions to the open source ecosystem. Most projects are being tackled by individual interns, while one involves a collaborative team working together to solve challenges.

Beyond the technical work, the internship is designed to provide hands-on experience with the practices that make open source communities successful: transparent collaboration, peer review, documentation, communication, and community engagement. Interns will gain experience navigating established projects, working with distributed teams, and learning how sustainable open source development happens in practice.

Over the course of the summer, participants will share updates on their progress, challenges, and accomplishments. These opportunities to reflect and communicate their work are an important part of the internship experience, helping interns build both technical and professional skills.

The program will conclude on August 7, 2026, with a series of lightning talks presented by each intern. During these presentations, interns will showcase their project work, highlight key contributions, and reflect on what they learned throughout the internship. The lightning talks provide an opportunity for mentors, Data Science Institute professionals, and fellow interns to celebrate the achievements of the cohort and learn more about the impact of their summer projects.

We are thrilled to have these 12 interns joining us this summer and look forward to seeing the innovation, collaboration, and community engagement that will emerge from their work. We wish the entire cohort a productive and rewarding internship experience and can’t wait to share their accomplishments in the weeks ahead.

Welcome to the OSPO Summer 2026 cohort!