Software development hosting platform GitHub is looking to nearly double the number of Indian developers on its platform from 5.8 million to 10 million developers by 2023. The company had launched in India last year and has seen 1.8 million new developers joining the platform since then.
“India is the third-largest market for developers on Github, and it is growing incredibly quickly. In fact, India is the fastest-growing country in the world,” Erica Brescia, Chief Operating Officer, GitHub told BusinessLine.
The number of contributions on the platform, such as issues and team discussions increased by 75 per cent in India compared to about 40 per cent for the rest of the world over the past year. In public repos, the number of contributors increased by 80 per cent over the previous year and over 1 million developers created their first repository on GitHub in India, making it the fastest-growing country in the world, in terms of developers contributing to open source
To ensure that it attracts more developers in India, GitHub also announced three new initiatives to support the open-source community and education and startup ecosystem in India.
To support and fund open source maintainers and contributors in their important work, GitHub has launched the GitHub Open Source Grants for India. As of 2021, GitHub will offer grants for a total sum of Rs 1 Crore through this program. “What we are trying to build is a culture of contribution” explains Maneesh Sharma, Country Manager at GitHub “The aim of this programme is to provide support to open source contributors investing their time and collaborating since this is not a zero-cost game. We also want to celebrate open source and motivate people to contribute to an ecosystem where almost every technology has benefited from the consumption of open source code. Specifically, if you look at India, the kind of problems solved here for millions and the billions will aid other emerging economies with their digital transformation through access to easily available open-source code.”
To support the growing community of student developers, the company is launching GitHub Externships. This will provide students in 100+ education institutions an opportunity to build relevant skills as future developers in these enterprises through working on projects listed by these enterprises on open source. “This is a symbiotic relationship, students get the internship they need for their credits. Enterprises get a clear view of the talent emerging from these universities as well as contributions to the projects listed by these organisations as open-source that can be used for in-house product development. Educators also get exposure to the skills that are relevant to the industry and enterprises” Sharma said. . In 2020, GitHub saw the number of students participating in the GitHub Campus program increase by 142 per cent. Over 100,000 students signed up for GitHub Student Developer Pack and its campus offering was adopted by more than 100 higher-education institutions in India.
GitHub has also announced the extension of its GitHub Accelerate program to startup accelerators, incubators, and more venture partners in India, expanding the eligibility of the program to more than 1,000 new startups in the coming year. Through this program, GitHub will provide access to GitHub enterprise to startups in India, even before they have scaled up to the enterprise level. “Ultimately we want GitHub to be a home for all developers and we are focused on making GitHub accessible, useful, and valuable to everyone,” said Brescia.
“We are not waiting for these startups to grow into enterprises to give them access to premium features, because these next-generation enterprises will be competing with the best of the best, their benchmarks are the leading tech corporations of the world,” added Sharma.
GitHub is also announcing a partnership with Nasscom FutureSkils program, by extending the GitHub Campus Program and Student Developer Pack to students, educators, and institutes that are a part of Nasscom’s university initiatives. GitHub will also extend access to the GitHub Accelerate program to startups participating in Nasscom’s incubator programs.
