The Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) Event Fellowship program aims to support and encourage diverse participation at events focusing on open source bioinformatics software development and open science practices in the biological research community. Each year we open two calls for applications, deadlines for which are 1 April and 1 October.

In 2021, we received 15 applications, of which three applicants, Sona Charles (Indian Institute of Spices Research, India), Anshika Sah (Institute of Home Economics, India) and Rupesh Gelal (Nepal Engineering College, Nepal) were awarded funding across the two open calls.

We are delighted to announce that Caleb Kibet and Hilyatuz Zahroh, two members who recently joined the OBF board, will be joining Malvika Sharan as the co-chairs of the OBF Event Fellowship program. Inviting contributions from the OBF board members, as well as bringing insights from their lived experiences, Caleb, Hilya and Malvika will re-evaluate how we can manage the OBF Event fellowship more effectively going forward.

There is a growing body of evidence, including the report from BOSC 2021, that virtual events are indeed more equitable for our colleagues from the Global South (see references: [1] & [2]), who were inadvertently excluded from most international events which required expensive travelling before the pandemic. However, in 2021, we saw a decline in applications to the Event Fellowship where we specifically accepted applications requesting funding for online conferences. We suspected that, after a year of the pandemic, most people working remotely must have managed the basic setup to attend virtual events.  It is also possible that many potential applicants might consider the expense for participation trivial enough that they didn’t want to spend time writing proposals or dealing with the admin workload of requesting fee assistance, and instead pay it out of their own pockets. Furthermore, online events are often free and/or provide free recordings to watch after the event – removing the need to pay a registration fee.

Hi everyone!

My name is Melissa and I’m happy to be collaborating with OBF as lead GSoC admin this year along with support from Yo Yehudi. I had a great (virtual) time at BOSC 2021 as an Outreachy intern and am glad to be supporting another internship program this year.

It’s time to start coming up with GSoC project ideas again! Below is some info that should help with that.

As previously described, during the November 2021 public Board meeting, the OBF announced two new initiatives to be voted on by the OBF membership. Both of these received a large majority of votes:

1. OBF Community Support Sponsorship (53 for, 3 against, 2 abstaining)
2. OBF Code of Conduct (54 for, 2 against, 1 abstaining)

The work to set up the new Community Support Sponsorship is underway. The new Code of Conduct is now available on the OBF website.

Date & Time: Tuesday, February 22, 2022, 15:00 UTC / 11am EDT

Location: online webinar hosted by ISCB

Speaker: Yo Yehudi, Open Life Science (former OBF board member and Google Summer of Code admin & mentor)

Topic: Growing open source communities with internships

The ISCB, which runs the annual ISMB conference, is offering a series of ISCBacademy webinars hosted by the Communities of Special Interest (COSIs), which include BOSC/OBF. These webinars are free to ISCB members.

During our last public Board meeting, the OBF announced two new initiatives that are being proposed for approval by the OBF membership in a formal votes.

1. 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. For details see: - /2021/05/11/obf-community-support-sponsorship/ - https://github.com/OBF/obf-docs/issues/86

2. 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/. For details see: - https://github.com/OBF/obf-docs/pull/78

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. These days everything is possible remotely — there is no need to travel halfway across the world. Still, the cost of small hardware (headphones, webcam, speaker, and/microphone) for attending remote events can be a hindrance sometimes. Fortunately, I came across the Open Bioinformatics Foundation Event Fellowship while researching the 2021 RISC-V Summit. I applied immediately for the fellowship. After a month, I received an email notifying me about my successful application. In this post, I provide an overview of my participation at this conference.

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.