ASBCB Omics Codeathon
The National Institutes of Health Office of Data Science Strategy, in partnership with the African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (ASBCB), is pleased to announce a virtual omics-focused codeathon on June 3-6, 2021, immediately preceding the ISCB-Africa ASBCB Conference on Bioinformatics, June 7-10. Participant applications are due May 21.
This event is free and open to all life science researchers, data scientists and coders. Codeathon participants will increase their capacity building, hone their bioinformatics and data science skills, and build new relationships during this four-day event.
Participants will be selected based on experience and motivation to attend. Applicants confirming their participation are expected to participate in the full event.
Scientists at any stage of their data science journey are encouraged to apply. Codeathon teams will benefit from team members with any of the following skills:
- Analyzing sequencing data types
- Working knowledge of scripting
- Familiarity with methods for manipulating and/or analyzing large datasets
- Developing bioinformatics code, pipelines or tools
- Data visualization
- Machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques
- Cloud computing
Interested participants should apply by May 21. Questions about this event may be sent to [email protected].
Applicants may pitch an idea for a project, run a project as a team lead, or be a general team participant.
Frequently Asked Questions
What topics are in scope?
This codeathon will focus on genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, metagenomics, epigenomics and the metadata associated with these data types. Proposals for pipelines in the analysis and visualization of publicly available data, such as 1000 genomes and data interoperability, are of particular interest. We also welcome proposals for tutorial pipelines and educational tools. While not required, you will have access to computational resources in the cloud to turn your idea into a working prototype.
Visit this website for examples of previous codeathon projects.
If I pitch a project, do I need to lead it?
You can choose to lead your project team, recommend someone, or we can try to find a suitable team lead. Providing a designated team lead dramatically increases the probability that we will select the project for the codeathon.
Do I need to assemble a team?
No. We will create working groups of five to six individuals who have various backgrounds and relevant expertise to work on each project.
What are my responsibilities as a team lead?
The team leader will coordinate a group of 5-6 people in defining the project and producing clear vision for developing a solution. To accomplish this goal, the team lead must define and delegate tasks, incorporate team members’ ideas to accomplish the goal, and ensure the team’s success. All participants in the codeathon, including team leads, will need to be present for the entirety of the codeathon.
What will we build?
We will make all pipelines, other scripts, software, and programs generated in this codeathon available on a dedicated public GitHub repository.
Teams may submit manuscripts describing the design and use of the software tools they created to an appropriate journal such as the F1000Research hackathons channel, BMC Bioinformatics, GigaScience, Genome Research, or PLoS Computational Biology.
Legal Information
Participants retain ownership of all intellectual property rights (including moral rights) to the code submitted to as well as developed in the codeathon. Employees of the U.S. Government attending as part of their official duties retain no copyright to their work and their work is in the public domain in the U.S. The Government disclaims any rights to the code submitted or developed in the codeathon. Participants agree to publish the code and any related data on GitHub.
Please contact us if you have questions or need more information.
