BioHackathon Europe

BioHackathon Europe is an annual event that brings together life scientists from around the world. It is organised by ELIXIR Europe, and offers an intense week of hacking, with over 160 participants working on diverse and exciting projects. The goal is to create code that addresses challenges in bioinformatics research.

This year we are holding the BioHackathon at Campus Belloch near Barcelona (see the Venue page), with remote access available if you cannot attend in person.

Spaces are limited for face-to-face participation and the registration is based on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration for the 2024 BioHackathon will open in May.

Scope

BioHackathon activities are driven by practical sessions where people gather, discuss, and implement ideas during intensive coding sessions. The topics will be aligned to challenges proposed by ELIXIR Platforms, Communities and Focus Groups.

Goals

• Advance the development of an open source infrastructure for data integration, which will accelerate scientific innovation. We focus on areas that support the work of ELIXIR Platforms, Communities and Focus Groups. These include areas such as FAIR, identifiers, metadata standards, ontologies and metadata catalogues.
• Engage technical people in the bioinformatics community inside and outside ELIXIR to work together on topics of common interest aligned to ELIXIR activities.
• Strengthen the interactions with ELIXIR Platforms, Communities and Focus Groups to establish and reinforce collaborations through hands-on programming activities.

Benefits

New developments

• Integrate prototypes, proof-of-concept proposals or drafts into production
• Kickstart projects

Existing developments and resources

• Test new versions
• Gather information for new features
• Reach out to new users
• Improve documentation and awareness
• Receive input from experts in different fields

Personal development and community building

• Lead projects in one of the biggest BioHackathon events in Europe with international participation
• Learn collaboratively with peers
• Share interests to organise or grow communities
• Meet and make new contacts
• Publish pre-prints

Industry engagement

People from diverse companies are encouraged to participate and submit project proposals. If you have any questions, for example regarding the scope of the event, contact the ELIXIR Industry and Innovation Officer Despoina Sousoni (despoina.sousoni@elixir-europe.org).

View the industry flyer

“It was an amazing experience…Two teams embraced our challenge to demonstrate the validity of edge computing. We reached our goal of connecting with the bioinformatics community and creating awareness for a new technology. No doubt we will participate in the future.”

Natalia Jimenez (Atos)

Code of Conduct

The ELIXIR Code of Conduct has been created so all participants at ELIXIR events organised and/or funded by the ELIXIR Hub can interact with each other in a respectful and safe environment. Participants have avenues to turn to in case they believe there has been a breach to this Code of Conduct.