Absolutely. This program is specifically catered to the growth and smooth transition of people like you who want to learn. KOSS and the mentors will help you wherever possible.
There is no deadline for selecting projects nor is there any restriction on the number of projects you can contribute to; you can also switch between projects as much as you want. The only necessity is that you should have made at least one commit before mid-term evaluations.
No, KWoC is a program which aims at helping participants learn how to contribute in the open-source world. This activity prepares you for various open source opportunities such as Google Summer of Code, Rail Girl's Summer of Code and Outreachy.
We do encourage participation into project development from everyone; but if you are a mentor we won't be publishing your stats nor will you be going through evaluations.
Nothing makes us happier than people spreading words about open-source; to begin, you can like our facebook page and increase awareness about KWoC in your college; nothing works better than word of mouth.
Please make sure to read the website. If after reading through it you still don't have an answer please consider reaching out to us on our mail address (available in the footer).
There is absolutely no selection criteria for students. You are selected in the program as soon as you register. So you don't have to ask your mentors "How to get selected for your project?", but instead go ahead with "How can I contribute to your project?".
Please be patient with your mentor(s). If you do not get a response on the communication channel, contact the mentor on their email id. If no response for 3 days, inform us.
All the contributions that you will make in KWoC will be displayed on your GitHub timeline. So, that is a big plus if you are participating in any competitions and your GitHub profile is on display.
Play around git and GitHub. Create an account on GitHub, set up git on your machine and start experimenting with it. You can also begin by following Codecademy's git interactive tutorial.
Other program similar to KWoC are GirlScript Summer of Code organised by GirlScript India. If you meant similar to GSoC, then look around, there are plenty of them e.g. KDE summer of code, Outreachy, Rails summer of code, etc.
GSoC requires 40 hours per week in summers. For KWoC, you may give 1-2 hours daily and that includes conversation with your mentor(s). More the projects you choose, more time in conversing about the work.
Yes! You can even work in parallel on them. Well if you are a beginner it is advisable to focus your attention at one thing at a time. But the choice rests with you.
Participating in Open Source contribution improves your skills of software development and of a particular programming language. Depending on your project, you might be able to use some algorithms too. But you should not be direct improvement on your competitive coding skills.