India’s GitHub community keeps compounding
When GitHub India launched a year ago, the country already hosted the platform’s third-largest developer population. Twelve months later, GitHub is marking the milestone with Satellite India and a set of programs aimed at maintainers, students and startups.
The growth numbers explain the attention. More than 1.8 million developers joined GitHub from India over the past year, bringing the total community to 5.8 million. Activity grew even faster than headcount: contributions such as issues and team discussions rose 75 percent in India versus about 40 percent elsewhere, and the number of contributors to public repositories climbed 80 percent. More than 1 million Indian developers created their first repository in that period, making the country the fastest-growing source of open source contributors worldwide. GitHub projects that India will pass 10 million developers by 2023.
Enterprise adoption followed a similar curve. Use of GitHub Enterprise by India-based businesses tripled in under a year, with Infosys, InMobi, Cognizant, Udaan, ShareChat, Capillary Technologies, Swiggy and ArisGlobal among the customers. Local partners including Amrut Software, Canarys Automations, CXIO Technologies, DevTools, Embee Software, G7CR Technologies and Sonata Software are helping deploy the platform across the country.
Three new programs for Indian developers
GitHub is introducing three initiatives tailored to the Indian ecosystem: Open Source Grants, Externships and Accelerate.
GitHub Open Source Grants
To fund maintainers and contributors building open source software in India, GitHub is offering grants totaling 1 Crore (10 million) Indian Rupees. The goal is to sustain projects that have drawn thousands of forks and contributions from around the world while drawing more attention to that work. Details are available at https://github.co/india-os-grants.
GitHub Externships
The student pipeline in India is substantial: participation in the GitHub Campus program jumped 142 percent in 2020, more than 100,000 students enrolled in the Student Developer Pack, and over 100 higher-education institutions adopted the campus offering. GitHub Externships builds on that base by connecting students with Indian companies through fellowship programs, giving them hands-on experience with enterprise development workflows. See https://github.co/india-externship.
GitHub Accelerate
A pilot last year gave select Indian startups access to GitHub Enterprise, drawing nearly 200 signups including AirMeet, Kawa Space and ClearQuote. GitHub Accelerate now opens that access to startup accelerators, incubators and additional venture partners, expanding eligibility to more than 1,000 new startups over the coming year. Information is available at https://github.co/india-accelerate.
Partnering with NASSCOM FutureSkills
GitHub is also tying its education and startup offerings into the NASSCOM FutureSkills program. Students, educators and institutes within NASSCOM’s university initiatives can use the Campus Program and Student Developer Pack, while startups in NASSCOM incubators gain access to GitHub Accelerate. NASSCOM’s FutureSkills effort aims to reskill two million IT professionals and train two million more from universities and other sectors.
GitHub Satellite India runs for two days, with updates from the region tracked via @GitHubIndia on Twitter and the GitHub India repository. Open roles on the India team are listed on GitHub’s careers page.
