Lot of folks I know are Open source contributors because of one crazy reason, Hacktoberfest. It’s perfectly okay to get a cool T-shirt shipped from America, grab swags and claim to be an Open source Developer.
Just contribute to Open source and opportunities will fly towards you
- Mario Behling, Co-founder FOSSASIA
This is perfectly justified by a number of people who has done great things just by contributing to Open source. Read Vishnu Ko experience in Open source and how he is now a Software Developer at Zulip(which pays him handsomely as well).
When you are properly contributing to Open source. There is a number of things to consider like from properly formulating git commit messages(https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/), to communication between team members, etc.
Try to learn more on how to get into GSoC by properly contributing to Open source like following the steps here.