GitHub has announced the first 15 recipients of GitHub Open Source Grants — a fund of 10 million Indian Rupees to support and fund open-source maintainers and contributors in India. The grant was announced at GitHub Satellite India 2021. The list of the first 15 recipients includes:

• Liyasthomas
• anuraghazra 
• pranshuchittora 
• VishalNehra
• bodhish
• shivammathur 
• Ahiliation
• onprem
• ptrthomas 
• Akshay2211
• snitin315
• Anikethsaha
• shikhamis11 
• gautamkrishnar
• gdsoumya

Since May 2021, GitHub has received hundreds of applications from across the country. Developers from 81 cities and 19 states across India applied and showcased their open-source projects. From maintainers building developer tools to contributors supporting COVID-19 projects, the Indian community participated with great enthusiasm. 

In 2020, GitHub India Private Limited, a subsidiary of GitHub, Inc., was established to serve developers and enterprise customers in India.

“One more way to contribute to a healthy and sustainable open-source community is by financially supporting the people who build and maintain it. This is why we introduced GitHub Sponsors, and I am excited to share that we are starting to open up GitHub Sponsors to an initial group of developers — including our grant recipients in India. Users’ early feedback will help us improve our experience for all developers in India before we announce wider availability,” as per the blog.

India has the third-largest number of active developers on GitHub. The country has become an innovation powerhouse, with open-source software development at the core. As a result, Indian developers are truly building the future of software. Over the past year, over 1.8 million developers joined GitHub in India, with the community now totalling 5.8 million developers, growing in March 2021.