GDG ANU

Stop doing tutorials.

Ship something.

A 10 week build program. Real project, real mentors, real users, one public launch.

Semester 2, 2026 · Applications Close: Mon 3 Aug @ 11:59 PM

WHO WE ARE

We are not another events club.

GDG ANU is the Google Developer Group on campus. This semester we run build teams. You join a team, you get mentors from industry, and you put a working product in front of real people before the year ends.

3

Projects

Pick the one you actually care about. Small teams of 4 to 6.

10

Weeks

Scoped for students. Assignments and midterms are built into the plan.

1

Launch

A public URL and a GitHub release with your name on the commits.

WHAT YOU WILL MAKE

Three projects. Pick one.

SignSense

An Auslan signing avatar. Type or say a few words and a character signs them back, mirrored and slowed down.

ReliefMate

An AI navigator that helps disaster hit Australians find the support they qualify for.

AccessANU

Step free campus routing. Scan a QR code, get a path that avoids stairs and broken lifts.

GRAPH ROUTING · PRODUCT · FIELD DATA

AccessANU

No barrier, no wrong turn on campus

The Acton campus is 145 hectares and 400 plus buildings, and accessibility data is buried in static PDFs. Google Maps drops you at a building footprint and gives up. Broken lifts change nothing on a printed map.

What you would actually build

• Scan a QR marker, no location permissions, instant start
• Edge weighted graph routing that reroutes when a barrier is flagged
• You audit the campus yourself and work with the ANU Access and Inclusion office

MENTOR

Anupam Phoghat

Founder. Google Developer Expert in AI and ML.

ANIMATION · LANGUAGE TECH · PRODUCT

SignSense

The Auslan signing avatar

Australia has around 16,000 daily Auslan users and only about 700 accredited interpreters. Learners have plenty of video dictionaries and no way to see a sign from their own viewpoint. Type or say a few words, and a character signs them back.

What you would actually build

• Record your own sign library with Deaf community advisors, then drive a character from it
• Blending between signs, so it reads as movement rather than a slideshow
• Mirrored view and speed control, the things a fixed reference video can never give you

MENTOR

Jonathan Parker

Engineering Lead at Aesop. Almost 20 years fullstack.

APPLIED AI · RAG · EVALUATION

ReliefMate

Find the disaster support you qualify for

After a bushfire or flood, help exists but it is scattered across a dozen agencies. Someone in crisis has the least capacity to navigate it. ReliefMate takes a plain English situation and returns a cited shortlist.

What you would actually build

• A real retrieval pipeline: chunking, embeddings, vector search, grounding
• Every answer cites its official source. It signposts, it never decides
• You measure hallucination rates, which is what turns a chatbot into engineering

MENTOR

Lucas Xavier

Android Tech Lead at Heidi Health. Ex Snapchat.

WHAT YOU WILL ACHIEVE

Something real to point at.

Not a certificate. Not a group assignment nobody sees again.

1

A deployed product

A live URL a stranger can open and use, not a localhost screenshot.

2

A public GitHub history

Real commits, real pull requests, real code review from senior engineers.

3

Production habits

Scoping, cutting features, shipping to a deadline, working in a team that depends on you.

4

Interview material

One project you can talk about for twenty minutes because you actually built it.

WHAT YOU GET

Mentors who do this for a living.

Every team is paired with a mentor. They review your code, pressure test your scope, and tell you the things nobody teaches in a lecture. Scan a code to see their background.

Jonathan Parker

Engineering Lead at Aesop. Almost 20 years across fullstack, cloud and technical leadership.

Lucas Xavier

Android Technical Lead at Heidi Health. Six years at Snapchat before that.

Anupam Phoghat

Founder and Google Developer Expert in AI and ML. International speaker and author.

Jane Street engineer

Runs the onboarding bootcamp: how to think, how to code in production, how to work together.

HOW THE SEMESTER RUNS · PART 1

Getting in and getting started.

WEEK 1

Market day

Today. Put your name down. Expressions of interest open at the stall.

THURSDAY

Speed friending

Meet the people you might build with. Free food, snacks and networking.

ONBOARDING

Bootcamp, run by a Jane Street engineer

How to think, how to code in production, how to work together. Taught in Java.

SELECTION

Project selection

Happens during and after onboarding, through the work you do plus a short interview.

HOW THE SEMESTER RUNS · PART 2

Building, then getting seen.

KICKOFF

Project start

Your team meets its mentors and stakeholders and shapes the direction together.

ONGOING

Weekly and fortnightly team meetings

Progress, code review, unblocking. Free food every time.

WEEK 6

Meet the Google Play team

Safety and security, financial transactions, performance analytics, monetisation tools.

WEEK 8

Professional recruiters

They read your resume and tell you exactly what they would write instead.

WEEK 10

Showcase

ANU careers and networking night. Demo to industry. Some people leave with a job.

NOVEMBER

Google office tour

After exams. Because you earned it.

Come find your team before the projects start. No experience needed, no commitment on the night.

Free food

Snacks

Networking

Speed Friending

GDG ANU x AIMSOC

This Thursday 30 July, 6:30PM @ MR5.02

GDG ANU

Come say hi.

Put your name on the application form at the stall, then meet us on Thursday. That is the whole process to get started.

SignSense · ReliefMate · AccessANU