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About

Bringing people with diverse backgrounds together to build tools for advanced analysis of biomedical data.

Goal

To host amazing events where researchers and coders from a variety of backgrounds have the unique opportunity to work together and create tools and tutorial pipelines that solve relevant problems for the biomedical community. The key to our hackathons is the focus on collaboration. Over three days each team works on a different scientific problem with an emphasis on sharing expertise and insights throughout the event.

Contact Us

ncbihackathons@mail.nih.gov

Previous Partners

We are always open to partnerships, please feel free to email us!

FAQs

  • Everyone! We encourage researchers, coders and data scientists, especially women, at any stage of their data science journey to apply. Past hackathon participants have ranged from students and postdocs with a working knowledge of scripting (e.g. Shell, Python, R) to those already engaged in the use of large datasets or in the development of informatics tools, code, or pipelines.

  • The opportunity to code as part of a team and network with people from diverse backgrounds. Exposure to tools and datasets available from NCBI and the broader bioinformatics community. Gain insights into good practices for data stewardship and good coding practices. The opportunity for leadership experience.

  • If you have an idea to pitch keep an eye out for our project proposal applications. You can either choose to lead your project team or recommend someone. Otherwise, we will attempt to find a suitable team lead. You can also participate without leading a team. Apply to our general application and select the proposed projects of interest to you. Women are especially encouraged to apply.

  • A NCBI hackathon is typically a three-day event that runs from 9 am – 5 pm each day, with the potential to extend into the evening hours. Each day, we come together to discuss progress on each of the topics and share models, tools and datasets relevant to the hackathon projects. There are also optional social events to further network outside your working hackathon team. Our hackathons may also include the opportunity to learn about bioinformatics best practices, coding styles, and useful tools to the community through short presentations and hands on demos.