Getting started with OpenVINO - looking for contribution guidance

[mrinalchaturvedi27]

Hi everyone!
I’ve been working on ML engineering projects, mainly in computer vision and medical imaging, and I’m comfortable with both C++ and Python. I’m particularly interested in low-level and system oriented work, things like efficient inference pipelines, performance optimization, and understanding how ML components fit together at the code level.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started exploring the OpenVINO ecosystem and its MediaPipe integration. I’m interested in contributing to OpenVINO projects in general and learning the codebase through small, meaningful contributions. While going through the GSoC ideas list, the MediaPipe/ByteTrack tracking project looked especially interesting to me, but for now my focus is on understanding the overall structure and finding good places to start contributing.
Quick question to help me get oriented:
For MediaPipe calculator related contributions, is the openvinotoolkit/model_server repository the best starting point, or would you recommend beginning elsewhere?
Any pointers to beginner-friendly issues or documentation that need improvement would be greatly appreciated.
Looking forward to learning from the community and contributing here. Thanks!
— Mrinal

[adrianboguszewski]

Hi there, OpenVINO has not yet been officially announced as a 2026 organization. We don't know if we're accepted. Please wait for the official announcement.