GSOC 2026 Interest: Project #8 Continuous Face-Detection with Automatic Device Switching on AI PCs using OpenVINO AUTO feature

[SouravVerma-art]

Hi OpenVINO team and mentors!

I'm Sourav from Jammu, India. I'm currently in my 2nd year of BTech at NIT Srinagar. As a beginner in open source, I have a good grasp of C++ and Python basics, and I'm really excited to contribute to OpenVINO for Google Summer of Code 2026!

I'm especially interested in the "Continuous Face-Detection with Automatic Device Switching on AI PCs using OpenVINO AUTO feature" project:

• Difficulty: Easy
• Size: 175 hours
• Mentors: Shivam Basia (@sbasia) and Aishwarye Omer (@omeraish)
• Why it appeals to me: It combines Python (my stronger skill) with practical AI tasks like running face detection continuously, using the AUTO plugin for smart runtime switching between CPU/GPU/NPU, adding a simple GUI for user control, and basic load analysis — all without deep low-level changes to the core engine. It feels like a great learning opportunity for edge AI on Intel hardware.

What I've done so far:

• Installed OpenVINO via pip and successfully ran the hello-world and a few classification notebooks.
• Started looking at face/object detection examples in the openvino_notebooks repo.
• Planning to complete the mandatory prerequisite PR (one good first issue) very soon to show my workflow and coding style.

A few specific questions to get started properly:

1. Which good first issues on the board are currently the most suitable for absolute beginners? (Preferably doc fixes, notebook improvements, small Python script changes, or simple sample updates.)
2. For this project, are there any particular face detection notebooks or Open Model Zoo demos you recommend as a strong starting point for prototyping the continuous detection loop + AUTO usage?
3. How is runtime device switching typically handled with AUTO to keep it as seamless as possible (minimal interruption)? Is it mainly by creating a new CompiledModel with updated device priorities when conditions change?
4. For the GUI part (user prompt to switch devices) and load monitoring, would Tkinter + psutil be acceptable, or do you prefer another lightweight approach?

I'm fully committed to following the contribution guidelines, learning fast, making small PRs first, and discussing everything openly. I've also just introduced myself in the Discord server with a similar message.

Thank you so much for reading this and for the amazing opportunity! I'd really appreciate any guidance, pointers, or feedback.