Your proposal may be one amongst many, so it's important to stand out from the crowd by submitting the best quality proposal you can. You don't necessarily need all the answers to the project challenges from the start because mentors will want to ask questions and make suggestions for improvements based on your initial submission. However, you can give mentors a really good feel for your enthusiasm and commitment by following the guidelines below and viewing this example proposal. In order to facilitate the review process, please email your proposal to us in .docx or .pdf format.
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- Name, address, nationality, primary language spoken.
- IM name and email address.
- Any other ways we can contact you, eg, Skype, Twitter etc.
- Name of your school and the course you are studying including your major, your expected graduation date and degree type (BSc, PhD etc).
- Copy of or link to your CV, blog pages etc.
- Where you will be located during the months of June, July and August.
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- Show your understanding of the project in detail, indicating what the deliverables would be and how you would achieve them.
- Clearly specify where HPCC Systems is being leveraged and what contributions are expected to the HPCC Systems open source community.
- Provide code examples and show your knowledge of any equations, formulae or approaches where relevant. This is particularly important for Machine Learning projects.
- Undoubtedly, each project will have its own challenges. Show that you are aware of these challenges and indicate how you might overcome them.
- Once you have submitted a proposal, use the comments sections to ask questions of mentors and discuss ideas that might help you develop and improve your proposal.
- Mentors may ask questions and make suggestions for improvements. Please respond as quickly as possible and make sure that you update your proposal with your changes.
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- Don't enter a placeholder proposal. It gives a bad impression of poor time management, lack of real enthusiasm and poor organisationorganization. We pass over them and concentrate on the rest.
- Don't just repeat the information shown on our Available Projects List. Refer to it but then use your own ideas to show how you would tackle the problem and any challenges you might face.
- Don't wait until the last minute to submit. Mentors may have questions and comments and you might too. Submit in plenty time so you can respond and update your proposal with improvements.
- Don't submit and think that's it until acceptance. If a mentor asks a question, please respond in good time. Failure to respond indicates lack of interest and commitment and you will miss out on the opportunity to increase your chances of acceptance by improving your proposal.
- Don't give the impression that you are applying because someone told you it was a good idea, for example, your tutor. It's ok to say that it was recommended to you but go on and say why you like the idea, how you feel about working on one of our projects and what you feel you will get out of the experience.
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