Hugin and panotools are participating in google Summer of Code 2007, where students are paid by Google to work on hugin and/or panotools and mentored by experts in the field.
Some suitable projects are listed on the panotools wiki: http://wiki.panotools.org/SoC2007_projects
The deadline for student applications is 24th March 2007. Application details can be found here: http://wiki.panotools.org/Google_SoC_2007