The Moffitt Bio-Data Club will be hosting its Fourth Annual Hackathon virtually on December 8th and 9th , 2022. A hackathon is a 1-2 day event where participants come together to solve a problems or work towards a common goal. Here is a short article describing what you can expect.

Participants from across Moffitt will form teams around a project with the purpose of solving a problem. The end result should be a “product” such as a visualization tool, an analysis pipeline, software packages, a machine learning model, a web app, a dataset, or even a new data analysis approach, and this product could then be used for other projects at Moffitt. At the end of the hackathon, the work from each group will be presented, and a small prize will be awarded. The goal is to have fun and collaborate while also being potentially impactful for Moffitt.

We (the organizing committee) would like to solicit potential project ideas from you. Last year we had nearly 55 participants.  Click the links for more information on the First Annual Hackathon 2019, Second Annual Hackathon 2020 and Third Annual Hackathon 2021 projects. 

* Dynamic Web Visualization Tool (Team Lead: Guillermo Gonzalez-Calderon) - 2019 Winner
* Utilization of target lesion heterogeneity to assess treatment efficacy (Team Lead: Dung-Tsa Chen) - 2020 Winner
* Alexa App to capture Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) (Team Lead: Rodrigo Carvajal) - 2021 Winner

When thinking about a project for a hackathon, please keep in mind a good project should be

* Clearly articulated
* Attainable in 1.5 days
* Easy to onboard participants unfamiliar with your work
* Organized
* Reproducible

If you are interested in proposing a project for the hackathon, please email Dr. Paul Stewart by October 28th, 2022 with your project idea, short summary, and a tentative title. If selected, you will be asked to lead a hackathon team to implement your idea.

Special Pilot Grant Announcement

Dr. Brooke Fridley and the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics (Bio2) will award a $25,000 pilot grant to the winning hackathon team with the following requirements:

* Teams must include a Bio2 faculty member to be eligible for the award.
* The Bio2 faculty member must participate during the entirety of the hackathon.
* Pilot grant funds will be available July 1st, 2023 and must be spent by April 30th, 2024.

More information on the pilot grant and registration for the hackathon will be forthcoming.


The Bio-Data Club 2022 Hackathon Organizing Committee
(Anders Berglund, Rodrigo Carvajal, Jordan Creed, Guillermo Gonzalez-Calderon, Jose Laborde, Richie Reich, Paul Stewart)