Next OBF Travel Fellowship Application Deadline: August 15, 2019

The OBF Travel Fellowship program, established in 2016, aims to increase diverse participation at events related to open source bioinformatics. Applications are reviewed three times a year. Applicants may apply for attending any event that develops or promotes open source development and open science in the biological research community. It doesn’t have to be an OBF-related event, and it can be one that you already attended in the recent past. For example, if you attended BOSC 2019 and your travel expenses were not covered by your employer or university, you could apply for a travel fellowship to help defray those expenses (up to a maximum of $1000, in most cases). [Read More]

OBF Travel Fellowship for AfricaOSH Summit 2019

Note: This is a guest blog post from Angela Muraya, who was supported by the ongoing Open Bioinformatics Foundation travel fellowship program to attend the Africa Open Science Hardware Summit 2019. The OBF’s Travel Fellowship program continues to help open source bioinformatics software developers with funding to attend conferences or workshops. If you are hoping to attend an open source / open science bioinformatics event and travel costs are a barrier, we encourage you to apply for one of our $1000 travel fellowships . [Read More]

Travel Award Recipients For April 2019

We are pleased to announce the April 2019 OBF Travel Fellowship recipients. The OBF Travel Fellowship program, established in 2016, aims to increase diverse participation at events related to open source bioinformatics. After carefully evaluating a competitive set of applications submitted from all around the globe, we were able to extend offers to five deserving applicants: Sara El-Gebali, Angela Wanjugu Muraya, Saket Choudhary, Aziz Khan and Vid Ayer. They have all accepted the award, and we are looking forward to hearing about their experiences. [Read More]

2nd US Semantic Technology Symposium 2019

This is a guest blog post from Md Kamruzzaman Sarker, who was supported by the ongoing Open Bioinformatics Foundation travel fellowship program to attend 2nd U.S. Semantic Technologies Symposium Series (US2TS). The OBF’s Travel Fellowship program continues to help open source bioinformatics software developers with funding to attend conferences or workshops. The current call closes on 15 April 2019. If you are hoping to attend an open source / open science bioinformatics even and travel costs are a barrier, we encourage you to apply for one of our $1000 travel fellowships. [Read More]

A week of open source adventures in San Diego

This is a guest blog post from Lindsay Rutter, who was supported by the ongoing Open Bioinformatics Foundation travel fellowship program to attend a National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) hackathon and the Plant and Animal Genome Conference (PAG). The OBF’s Travel Fellowship program continues to help open source bioinformatics software developers with funding to attend conferences or workshops. The current call closes on 15 April 2019. If you are hoping to attend an open source / open science bioinformatics even and travel costs are a barrier, we encourage you to apply for one of our $1000 travel fellowships. [Read More]

Travel award recipients for December 2018

We had a great round of OBF travel fellowship candidates in our last round of applications, and after review we extended offers to three deserving applicants: Malvika Sharan, Lindsay Rutter, and Sarker Kamruzzaman. They’ve all accepted the award, and we’re looking forward to hearing about their experiences! Congratulations to our December 2018 recipients: Malvika Sharan will be attending BOSC at ISMB 2019 in Basel this July. Abstract submissions have only just opened, but she intends to submit an abstract expanding on the idea “Inclusiveness in Open Science” that she spoke about last year ( slides). [Read More]

Meet our new Travel Fellowship Review Chair: Farah Zaib Khan

Farah presents CWLProv at GCCBOSC 2018 The next round of our OBF Travel Fellowships just ended on the 15th of December! This round we have introduced a Review Chair coming from the midst of our community that will help us in reviewing the applications. The role will be filled by Farah Zaib Khan, one of our OBF Travel Fellowship alumni. Farah has successfully applied for the Fellowship twice before. Thanks in part to this support, she has become a central community member both of the Bioinformatics Open Source Conference and the Open Bioinformatics Foundation itself. [Read More]

The color of bioinformatics: what is it and how can it be modified?

This is a guest blog post from Tendai Mutangadura, who was supported by the ongoing Open Bioinformatics Foundation travel fellowship program to attend the GCCBOSC 2018 meeting in Portland, June 2018. The OBF’s Travel Fellowship program continues to help open source bioinformatics software developers with funding to attend conferences or workshops. This was one of three awards from our April 2018 travel fellowships call. Our August call recently closed, the current call closes 15 December 2018, you might want to apply? [Read More]

City of roses they call it - Portland Oregon (USA)

How should I start describing the fruitful experience in this amazing city… First time ever in Portland, second time attending BOSC… I knew I was signing up for a great time but did not know much about the uncanny beauty of this picturesque city.

First of all, I would like to thank the Open Bioinformatics Foundation (OBF) for providing partial funding to support my travel expenses (though an OBF Travel Fellowship award). I would also like to thank my PhD supervisors Andrew Lonie and Richard O. Sinnott for the remaining expenditure.

[Read More]

Travel award recipients for April 2018

We had another great round of applications for the OBF Travel Fellowship this spring. After reviewing the applications, the OBF Board selected three recipients, who have all accepted the award. Congratulations to our spring 2018 recipients: Anisha Keshavan – attended the eLife Innovation Sprint. Anisha is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, where she develops open source code, including citizen scientist platforms for image quality classification and image segmentation ( update - see blog post). [Read More]