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. She also works with Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Network ( APBioNet) to facilitate the sharing of bioinformatics knowledge and skills through education and trainings in the Asia-Pacific region, and is involved with RINarxiv, a preprint server for Indonesia. She was a vice-chair of the 18th International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB) 2019, and the treasurer of the Bioinformatics and Biodiversity Conference (BBC) 2020. Hilya is committed to fast-forwarding science by promoting open access in bioinformatics and facilitating the learning of bioinformatics skills within communities.

The deadline for applying for an OBF Event Fellowship has just been extended to October 4, 2021! The OBF Event Fellowship program is aimed at increasing diverse participation at events relating to open source bioinformatics. You can read blog posts by previous Event Fellowship recipients.

See more details on our webpage, and submit your application at https://forms.gle/7ocmgvypiFHeFNfy7!

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.

Voting by OBF membership

• OBF Community Support Sponsorship: a proposed new grant programme, based on the OBF Event Fellowships but aimed at supporting grassroots projects running events in their own communities. Subject to approval by the OBF membership in a formal vote.
  • /2021/05/11/obf-community-support-sponsorship/
  • https://github.com/OBF/obf-docs/issues/86
• Code of Conduct: BOSC has a code of conduct, as part of the parent conference, but OBF does not yet have its own code of conduct. This pull request lays out a Code of Conduct for the OBF that, if approved by a membership vote, will replace the content on /code-of-conduct/.
  • https://github.com/OBF/obf-docs/pull/78

Minutes

After the meeting, the meeting minutes will be made available in the obf-docs GitHub repository.

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. Ball’s talk, BOSC 2021 Chair Nomi Harris will give a brief overview of the OBF and BOSC.

The BOSC-OBF 2021 Event Support Fund was awarded to Ariel Mundo Ortiz, a researcher from the University of Arkansas, to participate in BOSC 2021, an annual conference hosted by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF). Based on the OBF Event Fellowship program, this fund aimed to facilitate the participation of diverse researchers from historically underrepresented groups at BOSC to help wider awareness and adoption of open source bioinformatics practices in the biological research community. Find more information here.

The BOSC-OBF 2021 Event Support Fund was awarded to David Twesigomwe, a PhD student based at the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience (SBIMB) - South Africa, to participate in BOSC 2021, an annual conference hosted by the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF). Based on the OBF Event Fellowship program, this fund aimed to facilitate participation of diverse researchers from historically underrepresented groups at BOSC to help wider awareness and adoption of open source bioinformatics practices in the biological research community. Find more information here.

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. One of the BOSC-OBF awardees was Gemma Turon, a researcher from the Ersilia Open Source Initiative (EOSI), who writes here about her experience at BOSC 2021.

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. These fellowships are available to support both in-person and remote (virtual) participation at events such as conferences, workshops, training courses or collaborative development sprints. See more details on our webpage.

BOSC 2021, which is a track (COSI) of ISMB/ECCB 2021, will take place online the 29th and 30th of July. The complete schedule is here.

The event is being held in the Showcare platform – check out our tips for making the most of your online conference experience.

We invite all attendees to join us at the pre-BOSC happy hour at the BOSC [roundtable](http://All attendees are invited to our pre-BOSC happy hour today from 17:30-18:30 UTC! Look for us at the BOSC roundtable. https://ismbeccb2021.showcare.io/roundtables/) on Wednesday, July 28, from 17:30-18:30 UTC!

This is a guest post from Mihai Popescu, a GSoC student with CWL, which participates under the OBF umbrella. Cross-posted on the CWL forums: https://cwl.discourse.group/t/working-on-a-cwl-toil-project-with-the-open-bioinformatics-foundation/390

I am Mihai Popescu, a second year master student at VU Amsterdam in Parallel and Distributed Computer Systems. I am happy that my GSoC proposal got accepted and that I have started working on the project. I attended some CWL meetings since I submitted the proposal and I got to know a small part of the community. I would like to thank my mentor Michael for introducing me to the CWL community and answering a lot of my questions about workflows.