OBF Public Board Meeting (15 Sept 2026)

We will be holding an online OBF Public Board meeting on Tuesday 15 September 2026, at 15:00 UTC (8am PST, 11am EST, 4pm BST, 5pm CEST), on the Zoom platform (login details to follow in an update to this blog post). Under the OBF bylaws we must give at least 10 days notice of a public board meeting. This message should also have reached the OBF membership by email - the members mailing list is the membership roll.

Agenda:

  • Approve December 2023 Public Board Meeting minutes.
  • Formally thank out-going board members at large, Iddo Friedberg and Hilyatuz Zahroh.
  • Elections to the OBF Board:
    • The current board members have reached or are approaching the end of their expected three year terms, and are standing for re-election: Peter Cock (President), Nomi Harris (Vice President), Heather Wiencko (Treasurer), Hilmar Lapp, Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, and Caleb Kibet (board members at large).
    • This will be an electronic ballot of the current board members.
    • Additional nominations to the board will be considered (ideally the week before hand). We have approached a few candidates directly.

Nominations are welcome for the OBF Board election

OBF is committed to promoting the practice and philosophy of Open Source software development and Open Science within the biological research community. The roles and functions of OBF have evolved over the last 20 years, and currently include:

  • hosting and sponsoring the annual events, Bioinformatics Open Source Conference
  • running open source events like CodeFests or Collaboration Festivals
  • offering Event fellowships to promote diversity of underrepresented community members at open source events
  • onboarding and supporting OBF member projects by providing financial management support (e.g., reimbursements and payments and advertising)
  • maintaining OBF website, social media and newsletter for information dissemination
  • advocating through policy and public statements

OBF board members are elected through public nomination and voting.

In particular, we would like to invite members from low-tech/low-income communities or historically marginalised groups to bring new perspectives to the OBF community and highlight new areas of interest. Elected members of the OBF Board will be instrumental in steering OBF’s work to address urgent challenges and needs in open source bioinformatics communities that we might not have yet recognized.

If the OBF’s goals and values resonate with you, we encourage you to nominate yourself or someone else (please check with them first!) who would be a good addition to the OBF board.

Working with OBF in other volunteer capacity

In addition to the projects mentioned earlier, we are grateful to the members of the OBF community who participate in other community initiatives including (but not limited to) organising BOSC annually, handling GSoC mentorship activities and building capacity (skill development and training) and advocacy around open source in bioinformatics.

These tasks could not have been accomplished without the support of our community members. If you would like to be involved in OBF but don’t want to nominate yourself for a position on the Board, we would be delighted talk to you about how you could get involved with these or other projects:

We appreciate that many of these roles may be new to you and we may be able to offer mentorship and support if it is your first time occupying this type of position - please don’t feel that inexperience should stop you from applying!

OBF also offers support for individuals and groups to promote open source practices and build bioinformatics skills. Here are a few opportunities that you can benefit from:

We would also love to hear your ideas for how you could help boost OBF’s commitments to:

  • representing interests of bioinformatics and open source communities from developing countries
  • identifying and on-boarding potential member projects from low and middle-income backgrounds
  • supporting individuals and communities who are contributing to policy development
  • boosting grassroots projects that can benefit from OBF’s support
  • spreading awareness of OBF Event Fellowship and programme

Sound interesting? If so, please get in touch with the board by emailing board@open-bio.org. If you want more information, or want to talk to one of us about being on the board or in the OBF community in general, see the OBF Board page for contact information.