Community-driven development for computational biology at Sprints, Hackathons and Codefests

Computational biology comprises a wide range of different technologies and approaches. In order to combine different technologies to create more powerful workflows, multiple individuals and research groups generally need to collaborate. The format of data exchanged, the biology behind that data, and the individuals contributing the data or providing tools for its interpretation need to find mutual understanding and consensus. Much conversation and joint investigation are required in order to identify and implement the best approach to using and combining the latest technologies. Traditionally, scientific conferences feature talks that present novel technologies or insights, followed up by informal discussions during coffee breaks - not necessarily involving the presenting party. In multi-institution collaborations, in order to reach agreement on implementation details or to transfer deeper insights in a technology and practical skills, a representative of one collaborating research group typically visits the other. However, this does not scale well when the number of technologies or research groups is large. Conferences have responded to this issue by introducing Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) sessions, which offer an opportunity for individuals sharing interests, commonly with prior acquaintance on mailing lists, to intensify their interaction. However, parallel BoF sessions often make it hard for participants to join multiple BoFs and find common ground between the different technologies. Also, industrial participants in these discussions are rare, since their focus is on selling a product, not in forming collaborations that may not be immediately profitable. We here summarise our experience with Codefests, Hackathons and Sprints, which are interactive developer meetings in our field that aim to reduce the limitations of traditional scientific meetings described above, by strengthening the interaction among peers and letting the participants determine the schedule and topics covered at the meeting. These meetings are commonly run as loosely scheduled “unconferences� (self-organized identification of participants and topics for meetings) over at least two days, with early introductory talks to welcome and schedule contributors, followed by intensive collaborative coding sessions. We describe some differences in the way these meetings are organised, the audience is addressed, and in their outreach to their respective communities. The most prominent achievements of those meetings are summarised. Hackathons, Codefests and Springs share a stimulating atmosphere that encourages participants to jointly brainstorm and tackle problems of shared interest in a selfdriven proactive environment.