GSoC 2026 Question about Project 6 Coder Model

[MalakMoqbel03]

Hi Tao Zhou and Quan Yin,
My name is Malak Moqbel, and I recently applied to GSoC 2026 with a proposal for Project 6 (OpenVINO specialized coder model).
I have started exploring OpenVINO by running notebooks, converting a PyTorch model to OpenVINO IR, and testing inference and benchmarking.
I had two quick questions:
For the GRPO reward, would you recommend starting with execution correctness only, or combining it with additional signals from the beginning?
Is there a preferred base model for this project, or is the choice flexible?
I would really appreciate any feedback or suggestions on where to focus before the coding period.
Thank you for your time!
Malak Moqbel
malakmoqbel18@gmail.com