Omics Codeathon General Application - October 2026
The  African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology with support from the National Institutes of Health Office of Data Science Strategy and other organizations is pleased to announce a virtual omics-focused codeathon on October 20-31, 2026 CAT. Applications are due on July 24, 2026 by midnight 11.59pm CAT.

For more information about past codeathons, visit www.asbcb.org/events
For examples of previous codeathon peer-reviewed publications and ideas, you can visit the following URLs:

Accepted papers from past codeathons:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-60183-9 (The Kenyan Human Gut Virome Catalogue reveals extensive viral diversity and age-dependent community structure)
https://academic.oup.com/bioinformaticsadvances/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bioadv/vbag166/8707329 (DeepTaxa: A Hybrid CNN-BERT Framework for 16S rRNA Taxonomic Classification)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-37050-8 (rhinotypeR enables reproducible rhinovirus genotype assignment from VP4/2 sequences)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12879-026-12751-7 (MARVpred: Machine learning prediction of inhibitors targeting Marburg virus gene 4 small ORF protein)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-09744-y (RareInsight simplifies the communication of genetic results for rare disease patients)
R Packages from past codeathons:

Python Packages from past codeathons:

GitHub Repositories:
https://github.com/omicscodeathon
https://ncbi-codeathons.github.io/resources
https://github.com/STRIDES-Codes

If I pitch a project, do I need to lead it?
You can choose to lead your project team, recommend someone, or we can try to find a suitable team lead. Providing a designated team lead dramatically increases the probability that we will select the project for the codeathon.

Do I need to assemble a team?
No. If you have interested people already, we can include them in your team. We will create working groups of four to seven individuals who have various backgrounds and relevant expertise to work on each project.

What are my responsibilities as a team lead?
The team lead will coordinate a group of 4-10 people in defining the project and producing a clear vision for developing a solution. To accomplish this goal, the team lead must define and delegate tasks, incorporate team members’ ideas to accomplish the goal, and ensure the team’s success. All participants in the codeathon, including team leads, will need to be present for all the days of the codeathon.

What will we build?
We will make all pipelines, other scripts, software, and programs generated in this codeathon available on a dedicated public GitHub repository.

Teams would submit manuscripts describing the design and use of the software tools they created to an appropriate journal such as the F1000Research hackathons channel, BMC Bioinformatics, Elsevier journals, Frontiers in Chemistry, PLOS One, BMC Genomic Data, Frontiers in Genetics, PeerJ, PLOS Computational Biology, Genome Biology, GigaScience, Scientific Reports, Genome Research, Genome Medicine, Nature Communications, Nucleic Acids Research.

Legal Information
Participants retain ownership of all intellectual property rights (including moral rights) to the code submitted to as well as developed in the codeathon. Employees of the U.S. Government attending as part of their official duties retain no copyright to their work and their work is in the public domain in the U.S. The Government disclaims any rights to the code submitted or developed in the codeathon. Participants agree to publish the code and any related data on GitHub.

Please feel free to contact us: contact@asbcb.org if you have questions or need more information.
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