Hello everyone,
The
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology FOSDEM community is pleased to
announce the 1st edition of our DevRoom ! It will take place on
Saturday January 31st in Belgium, at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in the afternoon.
### General Information about FOSDEM
FOSDEM
is a free and non-commercial two-day weekend event organized annually
in Brussels, Belgium. It brings together 8000+ open source developers
and enthusiasts from around the world. No registration or payment is
necessary. FOSDEM provides a unique opportunity for developers and
communities to meet, share knowledge, and promote the development and
benefits of open source solutions.
### Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
Over
the past two decades, biology has been transformed by high-throughput
technologies that generate vast amounts of data. This revolution created
demand for efficient algorithms, parallel computing infrastructures
(GPUs, HPC, cloud platforms), and sophisticated software tools.
Open-source software is integral to this landscape.
Bioinformatics bridges engineering, computer science, and biology. We define it broadly to encompass:
* Genomics
* Medical imaging (ie Radiology, digital Pathology)
* AI-driven protein research
* Medical informatics and med-tech
* ... Any field at the intersection of the Life Sciences and technology that has a FOSS angle
### The Devroom
Following
a successful Birds of a Feather session at FOSDEM 2025 that drew dozens
of attendees from diverse backgrounds, we're launching a dedicated
Bioinformatics & Computational Biology devroom. It focuses on
sharing and collaboration in the life sciences, covering:
* Best practices and emerging approaches
* FOSS projects and tools
* Workflow Management & HPC
* Reproducibility and open science
* Software Engineering and UX
* AI & Machine Learning applications
* Visualization and interactive tools
### Call for presentations
_Submission deadline: November 30, 2025_
We
invite proposals from developers, researchers, and any enthusiasts
working with open source tools in the life sciences. Whether you're from
academia, industry, or the public sector, we want to hear about:
* Technical presentations on FOSS bioinformatics tools and projects
* Tutorials and demos of workflows, pipelines, infrastructure or software
* Best practices in reproducibility, performance optimization, or collaboration
* Experience reports from production systems or large-scale deployments
* Technologies like ML/AI
We especially encourage submissions that:
* Address practical challenges with real-world solutions
* Cover the biological context driving computational choices
* Showcase cross-disciplinary collaboration
* Highlight lessons learned from FOSS development in life sciences
We have several talk Formats:
* Standard talks: 20 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A
* Short talks: 10 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A
*
Lightning talks: 5 minutes "Your project in 1 slide" (perfect for
introducing new tools, seeking collaborators, or sparking discussions
which can be continued in the hallway)
Note:
All talks will be live-streamed and recorded (audio+video). By
submitting, you agree to being recorded and that your content will be
published under a Creative Commons (CC-BY) license.
#### How to submit a talk
- Indicate the duration in the title (20min, 10min or 5 min)
- Select ‘Bioinformatics and Computational Biology’ from the ‘Track’ field.
Note: Organizers may request shorter talk formats if we receive more submissions than we can accommodate.
We look forward to your submissions and to seeing you at FOSDEM 2026 !
The Bioinformatics & Computational Biology Devroom Team
* Alexis Praga - Medical Doctor, Ph.D in HPC
* Freek van Hermert - Next-Generation Sequencing & Data Infrastructure
* Jim Procter - Computational Scientist, FOSS Community
* Elena Grassi - Computational Biologist, Bioconductor/Bioconda contributor
* Alessandi Pilotti - Dev in open source cloud computing, Bioinformatics enthusiast