Disclaimer: Old news to some.
Google Summer of Code is kind of a unique initiative. The project simply provides a stipend to students ($4500) for working on assignments to imporove/enhance opensource projects from a list of OS participating organizations.
It’s wonderful to have such initiatives aiming at finding new open source developers and planting open source ideas in young minds.
Any student (from all over the world) can apply, provided that s/he’s a student.