CollaborationFest, CoFest for short, is a collaborative work event that has been held each of the past 13 years as a satellite event of BOSC. At these free events, held right before or after BOSC, participants gather in small groups to exchange ideas and work together on projects including but not limited to hacking. Participants were encouraged to submit their project ideas in advance to facilitate collaboration. CoFest 2023 took place during the two days just before BOSC, which was part of ISMB/ECCB 2023 in Lyon and online. [Read More]

Sierra Moxon to speak about “LinkML: an open data modeling framework, grounded with ontologies” [If you missed the webinar, the video is here and the slides are here.] ISCBacademy is a series of free webinars sponsored by the International Society for Computational Biology. They are open to all, including those who are not ISCB members. ISCB members can access the webinars via the ISCB Nucleus platform: https://iscb.junolive.co/. Non-members need to register for Nucleus: https://iscb. [Read More]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program aims to promote diverse participation at events promoting open-source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Michell Salcan, an undergraduate at the Universidad Regional Amazonica Ikiami, was awarded an OBF Event Fellowship to atten d The 3rd Latin American Conference on Complex Networks in Cusco, Peru. The week of August 21 to 25 has been one of the most beautiful and satisfying experiences of my personal life and the beginning of my professional life because I had the opportunity to attend and present my undergraduate thesis at the LANET 2023 event. [Read More]

The 24th annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference, BOSC 2023, took place as part of ISMB/ECCB 2023 in Lyon, France, and online. ISMB/ECCB attracted a near-record number of attendees, with over 2100 in person and about 900 more online. Most of the BOSC organizing committee (missing: Jessica Maia and Chris Fields)A full room at BOSC 2023 The opening session of BOSC kicked off with a welcome from chair Nomi Harris. An overview of BOSC’s parent organization, the Open Bioinformatics Foundation, was presented by OBF Board member Bastian Greshake Tzovaras. [Read More]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program aims to promote diverse participation at events promoting open-source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Nehemiah Ongeso, an MSc graduate at the University of Nairobi, was awarded an OBF Event Fellowship to attend the SMBE23 conference. Attending a prestigious conference can be a turning point in any scientist’s career; for me, it was no exception. The Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) conference, hosted in Ferrara, Italy, was an unparalleled experience that combined cutting-edge scientific research with a unique cultural immersion. [Read More]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program aims to promote diverse participation at events promoting open-source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Daniela Senra, a PhD researcher at Centro Regional de Estudios Genómicos, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, was awarded an OBF Event Fellowship to attend the Human Cell Atlas General Meeting 2023. In July, I had the incredible opportunity to attend and present a lightning talk at the Human Cell Atlas General Meeting 2023, that took place in the city of Toronto, Canada, from July 10th to July 12th, 2023. [Read More]

Diversity, inclusion and accessibility (also known as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, DEI) are a major part of BOSC’s mission and core values, and we pursue these goals in multiple ways. BOSC 2022, for example, included a panel on Building and Sustaining Inclusive Open Science Communities, with panelists who not only were experts on the topic but also themselves belong to various groups that are typically underrepresented in our community. And with generous support from our sponsors, each year we provide free registration to 10-20 BOSC participants as part of the OBF Event Fellowship program), which aims to increase diverse participation at events related to open source bioinformatics and open science. [Read More]

The call for applications for the OBF Event Fellowship 2023, round 2, is now open. The deadline for this round is 1 August 2023. Applications should be submitted via this Google Form. We have provided a Word template to help you draft the application locally before filling out the form – make a copy of this template. The OBF Event Fellowship program aims to increase diverse participation at events that promote open-source bioinformatics and/or open science. [Read More]

The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program aims to promote diverse participation at events promoting open-source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Winfred Gatua, Doctor of Philosophy, Bristol Medical School , was awarded an OBF Event Fellowship to organize a Hybrid Carpentries workshop at Laikipia University, Kenya. Hosting and facilitating a hybrid carpentries workshop in my home country is an excellent highlight for me. [Read More]

We’re sharing some important news with you regarding our mailing lists. From early on, we’ve maintained a self-hosted Mailman server for any OBF project that needs a mailing list, including our member roster list. After careful consideration, we have decided we need a solution that keeps track more reliably with current and emerging spam-fighting technologies and standards, and that simultaneously requires much less administration time and know-how. Specifically, we are planning to migrate the lists to paid hosting, possibly Mailchimp. [Read More]