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Welcome to Berkman Center Google Summer of Code 2015

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University was founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. We represent a network of faculty, students, fellows, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and virtual architects working to identify and engage with the challenges and opportunities of cyberspace.

We investigate the real and possible boundaries in cyberspace between open and closed systems of code, of commerce, of governance, and of education, and the relationship of law to each. We do this through active rather than passive research, believing that the best way to understand cyberspace is to actually build out into it.

Our faculty, fellows, students, and affiliates engage with a wide spectrum of Net issues, including governance, privacy, intellectual property, antitrust, content control, and electronic commerce. Our diverse research interests cohere in a common understanding of the Internet as a social and political space where constraints upon inhabitants are determined not only through the traditional application of law, but, more subtly, through technical architecture ("code").

As part of our active research mission, we build, use, and freely share open software platforms for free online lectures and discussions. We also sponsor gatherings, ranging from informal lunches to international conferences, that bring together members of our diverse network of participants to swap insights – and sometimes barbs – as they stake out their respective visions for what the Net can become. We also teach, seeking out online and global opportunities, as well as supporting the traditional Harvard Law School curriculum, often in conjunction with other Harvard schools and MIT.

Read more about the Berkman Center.

Read more about GSoC.

Contact Us

IRC: irc://irc.freenode.net/berkman-gsoc IRC logs here

Email: berkmancenterharvard@gmail.com

Project Opportunities

There are seven GSoC 2015 projects at the Berkman Center:

Loosely Defined

Docksr

A slick GUI for managing document relationships and versions.

Tools for Time Travel

A suite of time capsule encryption tools for sending messages securely into the future, so they cannot be read until a particular date or event.

Tighter Defined

Chilling Effects

Chilling Effects is a website, database and research project studying cease and desist letters concerning online content.

Curarium

Curarium is a platform for exploring, analyzing, and making arguments about collections and the objects they comprise.

dotplot

dotplot is a visualization that allows one to tell a story about data.

TagTeam

TagTeam is a versatile, open-source social-tagging platform and feed aggregator.

Application Template

Application template for GSoC 2015. This is the preferred template for submitting your application to work on a Berkman Center project.

FAQ

Answers to commonly asked questions. This includes a set of requirements around working hours, who can apply, other commitments you might have for the summer. Please read!