July - MonBUG summer hackathon at the Old Port¶
Event Details
Date/Time:
Friday, July 14th, 2017 (approximate)
Location:
Location: HackerFest, Startupfest, Old Port of Montreal
We had a lot of fun the previous year organizing a hackathon at the HackerFest taking place at the end of the Montreal Startupfest, so we decided to repeat the event this year.
It was a 24 hour marathon, and participants were encouraged to spend the night on site. During the hackathon, participants were given one dataset on which to apply machine learning techniques. No prior knowledge of machine learning or molecular biology was required. The winners got bragging rights, a MonBUG t-shirt, and an opportunity to advance scientific knowledge.
The location was spectacular (tents on the docks of the Old Port). Other hackathons took place at the same time, with some of the best programmers in Montreal. We also collaborated with Bricobio, who organized a hackathon focused on wet-lab biology (DIYBio Montreal).
Winners¶
Congratulations to the winners of the MonBUG 2017 summer hackathon: Loic Bruneau, Laurence Liang, Stephen Lu, Johann Akré, Jules Lambert, and Thomas Rademaker!
In just 24 hours they were able to design and write a program able to classify DNA variants according to their functional impact, by parsing the existing scientific literature on the variants, and training their model on a subset of variants that had been classified.
It was great fun, and a great team. Thank you to the organizers of Startupfest and HackerFest for inviting us.
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