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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. Rupesh Gelal, a student from Nepal Engineering College, Nepal, attended the 2021 RISC-V Summit, supported by this fellowship granted to him in the second round of 2021. The pandemic has made attending conferences and events more accessible for full-time students like me, who often can’t travel internationally to attend in-person events. [Read More]

The OBF held a public Board meeting on September 21, 2021, via Zoom. During the meeting, one Board member, Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, whose term expired, was elected to another term as Board member-at-large, and two new Board members were elected: Hilyatuz Zahroh and Caleb Kibet. Additionally, two proposals were presented (see below). The meeting minutes will be made available in the obf-docs GitHub repository. Hilyatuz (“Hilya”) Zahroh is a bioinformatician at the Genetics Research Centre, Universitas YARSI, in Indonesia. [Read More]

Date, Time, and How to Join Date and time: 2021-09-21, 17:00 UTC (10am PT / 1pm ET / 18:00 UK) Participation link: https://lbnl.zoom.us/j/97312757115 Password: OBF2021 Meeting ID: 973 1275 7115 Agenda Approve minutes from the previous Public Board Meeting: https://github.com/OBF/obf-docs/pull/87 Term expirations and Elections to the Board (electronic ballot) Hilyatuz Zahroh and Caleb Kibet, running for Board member at-large Board member Bastian Greshake Tzovaras’ term expires this year and he would like to stand for another term as member-at-large. [Read More]

The ISCB, which runs the annual ISMB conference, is offering a series of webinars hosted by the Communities of Special Interest (COSIs), which include BOSC/OBF. These webinars are free to ISCB members. The first BOSC/OBF ISCBacademy COSI webinar will take place on Tuesday, September 14, 2021, at 15:00 UTC / 11am EDT, and will feature Mad Price Ball of the Open Humans Foundation speaking about “Open Sourcing Ourselves - Together.” Before Dr. [Read More]

The BOSC-OBF 2021 Event Support Fund enabled awardees to register for free for BOSC 2021, an annual conference hosted by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF), which promotes and facilitates the open source bioinformatics development and open science. Based on the OBF Event Fellowship program, the BOSC-OBF support fund aimed to facilitate participation of diverse researchers from historically underrepresented groups at BOSC, helping to spread wider awareness and adoption of open source bioinformatics practices in the biological research community. [Read More]

The call for application for the second round of this year’s Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship is open. Please submit your application before October 1, 2021 (save a calendar reminder). Just announced: deadline extended to October 4, 2021! Please apply via this Google application form: https://forms.gle/7ocmgvypiFHeFNfy7. The OBF Event Fellowship program is aimed at increasing diverse participation at events promoting open science practices such as open source bioinformatics resource development and dissemination in the biological research community. [Read More]

OBF students and mentors at an OBF kickoff call Every year the OBF applies to participate as a mentoring organisation for Google Summer of Code, a paid work experience program where students get the chance to do paid work on an open source project and open source organisations host the students to work on their projects. This year, eight projects have participated under the OBF umbrella - read more about these fantastic students and their work below: [Read More]

About three years ago I nervously responded to a blog post from the OBF looking for board member applications from people who were interested in leading open science related initiatives. This went as well as I possibly could have hoped - both myself and the other applicant, Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, officially joined the board in March of 2018 for a three-year term. Over the last (nearly) three years, I’ve learned a lot and have participated in many OBF activities I can be proud of. [Read More]

BOSC is returning to ISMB in 2021, after a successful partnership with Galaxy for the first Bioinformatics Community Conference last year ( BCC2020 online). Originally slated to take place in Lyon, France, ISMB/ECCB 2021 announced today that the conference will be virtual. This news may be disappointing to some, but for others it offers an opportunity to participate in a conference that they would not have been able to travel to attend. [Read More]