Palisadoes Selected for the GitHub Externship – Winter 2022 Cohort

Santa Clara, CA – November 23, 2021: The Palisadoes Foundation has been selected to participate as an open source organization by the GitHub Externship run by GitHub India.

This is the second time that the Foundation has been awarded this status after successfully participating in the first Externship in the Summer of 2021. At that time, GitHub received over 1300 student applications from 175 Indian higher education institutions that are participating in the GitHub Campus Program. 62 students were selected as GitHub Externs to work with projects and mentors from 18 organizations, of which Palisadoes was one.

Three students participated by contributing to our Talawa mobile app projects. They focused on adding new features and redesigning the web administration portal.

This continued collaboration exemplifies the faith placed in the quality of our work by the international open-source community. GitHub, and it’s parent Microsoft, have proven their commitment to supporting software engineering talent around the world. We are proud to the a part of this movement. It is a great honor.

Peter Harrison, President, The Palisadoes Foundation

The Palisadoes foundation looks forward to continuing this partnership with Github India in promoting open source software collaboration around the world.

About the Talawa Projects

For the past four years we have focused on creating a mobile app to help community organizations like ourselves better manage their membership. We felt these organizations often faced similar challenges with the project management of events and keeping track of volunteer abilities, roles and responsibilities with a social media component.

The mobile app is useful for any community-based organization such as clubs, small religious institutions, neighborhood groups, and volunteer associations.

About GitHub India

GitHub India was created in 2020 to support the third-largest number of active developers on GitHub that was growing 22 percent annually. GitHub supports 73+ million software developers, 4+ million organizations, 200+ million software repositories and is used by 84% of the Fortune 100.

About the GitHub Externship

The GitHub Externship is a 90-day fellowship program for third or pre-final year students of GitHub India’s Campus Partner schools. The initiative provides hands-on, collaborative, remote learning with practical experience under the guidance of expert mentors.

Students get to select from a vast variety of Open Source projects managed by various organizations. They get paired with a mentor from participating organizations who will handhold them and review their work on a regular basis.

About the Palisadoes Foundation

Since 2016, The Palisadoes Foundation has been assisting STEM students to become globally competitive in software engineering. Palisadoes does this by providing new avenues to promote STEM education for university students in under-served communities. The Foundation uses a series of programs aimed at creating increased awareness of their abilities in the global marketplace.

Meet Ritik Kumar Srivastava

Ritik is one of our 2021 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) students working on our Talawa project. He started participating in March, and was formally accepted as a GSoC student in May. He has been collaborating with other students and mentors on his various GitHub pull requests.

Welcome Ritik!


Hello, my name is Ritik Kumar Srivastava. I am currently a senior at Galgotias University, standing under the course B.tech(Hons) in Computer Science and Engineering with Specialization in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

On my first interaction with “The Palisadoes Foundation” under the open-source contribution program, I had this opportunity to showcase my skills in an open-source application. It was necessary for me to get into GSoC 2021 to boost my skills perspective but also an opportunity to help my family financially.

Every moment from March 12, 2021 has been memorable and taught me a lesson each day that helped me grow more. This opportunity was only made possible with the combination of passionate mentors and Peter Harrison Sir.

I aimed to give Talawa some of the features like:

  • Donations to an organization via users.
  • Well-defined authentication flow.
  • Migration of code base.
  • Invitation to other users registered/unregistered.
  • App showcase on the first launch.

I find myself fortunate to have so many good friends and colleagues because of there contribution to my learning is immense. I don’t have a laptop to be true of my own whatever I learned and gained is; all that was not possible without their help.

I am currently watching iOS development tutorials. Have a keen interest in mobile app development. I am also interested in the automation of tasks via python automation, UiPath or automation through development boards. Being an AI and ML enthusiast, I always try to learn new things and implement them in my free time.

Meet Saumya Singh

Saumya is one of our 2021 GitHub Externship students working on our Talawa project. She started formal coding with the Externship in June and has been collaborating with other students and mentors on her various GitHub pull requests.

Welcome Saumya!


Namaste, I am Saumya Singh an ordinary girl with a bag full of extraordinary dreams to learn, explore, be happy & achieve a lot more.

Technically, I enjoy working in the field of Web Development. I strive to be a better Web Developer daily. Mainly working on the front end and aiming to be a Full Stack developer. Besides, I am curious about Machine Learning and I deep dive into the world of Computer Vision. I have participated in various National level hackathons and I am part of the Women’s community in tech too. I am blessed that my team is a grand finalist of the National level technical event Toycathon’2021, and have also applied for a patent in the same project.

I am an avid book reader. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is one of the best novels I have read, I also like reading Dan Brown novels. Writing soothes my soul, I have a domain on WordPress where I express my thought at times. Swimming, dancing, and sometimes talking to plants (😬) gives me joy. When I am working, learning, or coding, I like to listen to Jazz.

I believe “Life is Learning & Learning is Life” when anyone lives by this motto, they have the curiosity to look forward to something and a vision to learn new things with a positive attitude.

Keep Smiling.

Thank you

Meet Yasharth Dubey

Yasharth is one of our 2021 Google Summer of Code (GSoC) students working on our Talawa project. He started participating in March, and was formally accepted as a GSoC student in May. He has been collaborating with other students and mentors on his various GitHub pull requests.

Welcome Yasharth!


Hey guys, I am Yasharth Dubey. A 2nd-year Computer Science Student from India, I am currently pursuing my bachelors from the Indian Institute of Information technology Dharwad. I am a competitive programmer along with a developer. I am a regional finalist in ICPC 2019, 6:star: on Codechef and Pink Band Candidate master on code forces. I am a very keen contributor to open-source programs. This interest in the opensource brought me to the GSoC as it Is the Olympics for opensource. I searched for some familiar Tech-stacks and while I was searching, I found The Palisadoes Foundation there. The thing which took my attention as it was the only foundation that has put the label of Social Good in the description. That zeal for social good brought me here. After finding the culture and nature of every mentor here I was happy to choose The Palisadoes Foundation for my GSoC journey. Hope I will be able to contribute in the future as well. Thanks to Peter Harrison Sir for allowing us to serve the social good by this organization’s motive.

Peter Harrison Running for ARIN Trustee

Santa Clara, CA – September 21, 2016 – Peter Harrison, President and Chair of the Palisadoes Foundation, has been nominated and is running for office at the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN) as a member of the Board of Trustees. Mr. Harrison is currently a member of the Board and is seeking reelection.

“It is an honor to have been nominated. It reflects the internet community’s appreciation of my contributions at Google, Netflix, eBay and Colovore; as well as my non-profit work.” noted Peter.

In his current term, he has served on the:

  • ARIN Finance Committee, 2019-2021
  • ARIN Compensation Committee 2021
  • ARIN Governance Working Group, 2020-2021
  • ARIN Community Grant Program Committee, 2019-2021

“ARIN needs to review some areas of its governance to reflect an organization of its scale and maturity. As a member of the Governance Working Group, I’d like to see that through to completion,” he continued, “We have made great strides in financial oversight in my term, and I’d like to use that as a model for governance.”

Interested parties can endorse any of the candidates, including Peter, by clicking the REGISTER link of this easy online form. It’s advised that adding a signature at the end of your endorsement will provide great context. You can also review the complete set of candidate bios here.

We wish Peter all the best in his campaign.

About ARIN

The American Registry of Internet Numbers manages the distribution of Internet number resources used by every device attached to the internet, from phones to computers.

These resources include Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs). ARIN manages these resources within its service region, which comprises Canada, the United States, and many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands.

In addition to the registration of these resources, ARIN also provides services that ensure the security and integrity of routing traffic over the Internet.

ARIN also coordinates policy development by the community and advances the Internet through informational outreach.

About Palisadoes

Since 2016, The Palisadoes Foundation has been assisting STEM students to become globally competitive in software engineering.

The Foundation promotes software engineering education internships for university students in under-served communities. Over 40 students have participated in its summer programs mentored by IT professionals.

The demographic focus is on Black, Brown, Latinx and indigenous groups. The geographic focus is on the North American and the Caribbean regions.

Palisadoes has participated in the annual Google Summer of Code, the GitHub Externship, and the DigitalOcean Hacktoberfest programs.