Interested in contributing for GSoC 2026!

[CityBoy-Claude]

Hi! I’m Cenhao, a junior software engineer working on AV infrastructure with a strong passion for robotics and Deep Learning inference. I’m new to the OSS community and am eager to take my first step by contributing to the Optimize a VLA model for embodied intelligence project. 😎
I would like to ask mentors @nacui-intel @baihe-liu : are there any prerequisite tasks or specific technical areas you recommend I explore before drafting my proposal? I’m appreciate any guidance you would provide, thank you!

[biapalmeiro]

Thanks for your interest @CityBoy-Claude. The Open Edge Platform was not formally accepted as an organization for the GSoC 2026 as of now. I suggest wait a bit until having an update from us before investing time in a proposal. Thank you!

[CityBoy-Claude]

Thanks for reply! Looking forward to hear good news~

[biapalmeiro]

Hi @CityBoy-Claude, all contributions to Google Summer of Code will be under OpenVINO. Please, check the updates from there: https://github.com/openvinotoolkit/openvino/wiki/Google-Summer-Of-Code

I reached out directly @nacui-intel and @baihe-liu regarding your question. So, expect an answer soon.

Thanks for your interest!

[CityBoy-Claude]

Thanks for reply, looking forward to see Open Edge Platform in next year's GSoC! I'd still love to make contributions to the project out of GSoC, and want to know more about what I can help 😄 .

[arodage]

@CityBoy-Claude What @biapalmeiro means is that all the projects, including the Open Edge Platform, are moved under the OpenVINO umbrella. You can find the list here: https://github.com/openvinotoolkit/openvino/wiki/Project-ideas-for-2026

[CityBoy-Claude]

Oh sorry about that! I see the project there, thanks!

[nacui-intel]

Hi, Cenhao, Thanks for your interest. Please start from the doc https://eci.intel.com/embodied-sdk-docs/content/Intel_embodied_Intelligence_SDK.html. It would be better if you can practice to convert a popular VLA model, e.g. UnifoLM-VLA-0, to openvino framework and run the inference on intel's gpu. Furthermore, you can try to use intel's profiling tools, e.g. vtune, advisor, and check openvino/onednn/compute runtime verbose log to analyze the hotspots/pain points for the next-step optimizations.

[CityBoy-Claude]

Hi @nacui-intel, thanks for your reply! I’ve been looking into GR00T mentioned in the project details and would also be very interested in exploring UnifoLM.

Could you please let me know if there’s a way to access an iGPU environment for development or testing?

[nacui-intel]

Sorry, I have no idea for the hw access.