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tags: obf
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# OBF Newsletter DATE HERE

TL;DR: BOSC as part of [BCC2020](https://bcc2020.github.io/) was a blast, OBF fellowships have been expanded in scope and renamed "event fellowships", [OpenCider](https://selgebali.gitbook.io/opencider/) aims to increase digital equity, and FAIR-biomed enables in-browser biological resource searches.

In longer form:

## OBF News

### OBF Travel Fellowships - now Event Fellowships!

Our **last round** of fellowships was launched in early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. We soon realised that we'd have to [change the way we offered the fellowships to support online events effectively](https://www.open-bio.org/2020/03/13/obf-travel-fellowships-update-in-light-of-the-coronavirus-covid-19-%ef%bb%bf/). We've since decided to make the changes permanent, supporting online events indefinitely, as well as in-person events when it's eventually safe again. We've officially renamed it the OBF Event Fellowship to reflect the expanded scope of online event support.

[[Read more on the website](https://www.open-bio.org/event-awards/)]

#### Call for application for OBF Event Fellowships

Our call for the application is open, [please apply by October 1st](https://www.open-bio.org/event-awards/#fellowships-applications).
Applicants anywhere in the world are eligible to apply, with a cap of $1000 per event.
If the event you want to attend is coming up in the next 12 months and it promotes open source bioinformatics software development or open science in the biological research community, this is a great opportunity to get support for your remote participation.

**Support for event organisers:** We've also extended the OBF Event Fellowship to support open+bio event organisers as well as event attendees - so if you need support for things like a videoconferencing platform or other event organiser-related expenses, please consider applying.

[[Read more on the OBF Blog](https://www.open-bio.org/2020/08/22/obf-event-fellowship-round-2-2020/)]

### BOSC News

**BOSC 2020:** BOSC ran alongside Galaxy as one of the two tracks at the online [Bioinformatics Community Conference (BCC2020)](https://bcc2020.github.io/), with nearly 800 registered people from 62 countries. We wrote about what we learned organising a conference on the Remo videoconferencing platform [on the BCC2020 blog](https://bcc2020.github.io/blog/lessons-learnt), and BCC2020 co-chair Nomi Harris wrote about [why planning an online conference is harder than planning an in-person one](https://www.open-bio.org/2020/09/01/planning-an-online-conference-is-hard/). Watch for the official post-meeting BOSC 2020 report, coming soon.

**BOSC 2021:** For now, we plan to wait and see what pandemic conditions and attitudes are like before committing to a decision for next year's conference, so we don't yet know if it will be co-located with ISMB, online, or some other option.

## Community updates and interesting links

### OpenCIDER

OpenCIDER (Open Computational Inclusion and Digital Equity Resource) is a community-led initiative by the OBF event fellowship awardee [Sara El-Gebali](https://www.open-bio.org/2019/08/27/dos-and-donts-for-computational-training/), and [Nazeefa Fatima](https://selgebali.gitbook.io/opencider/who-we-are/our-team). With early roots in Sara's "dos and don'ts of computational training" workshop, it has expanded beyond best practices for computational workflows, to cover equitable access to digital skills and resources. OpenCIDER aims to be an important factor in supporting regions that have lower access to high speed internet and/or resources for computational training and research.

* Visit the [OpenCIDER website](https://selgebali.gitbook.io/opencider/) to learn more and get involved! :)
* Sign up for the [OpenCIDER newsletter](https://t.co/cANkirFpPW?amp=1)!
* Join OpenCIDER on [Slack](https://opencider.slack.com), [Twitter](https://twitter.com/OpenCIDER), and [Gitter](https://gitter.im/OpenCider/community).

### FAIR-biomed

[FAIR-biomed](https://github.com/FAIR-biomed) is a modular browser extension for accessing open biomedical resources seamlessly inside a web browser. It brings a range of open-data resources - on genes, disease, genomic regions, variants - to any web-page. It is open-source and available as an extension for Chrome or an add-on for Firefox. More information and documentation available at [https://fair-biomed.github.io](https://fair-biomed.github.io)

[Tomasz Konopka](https://github.com/tkonopka) is leading the project, hat-tip to [Aziz Khan](https://github.com/asntech) for sharing this.

### Your content needed for the next issue!

Tell us about the things that catch your attention in the open source bioinformatics world! If you have an exciting project update, request for feedback, or interesting link, [feel free to share it with us on GitHub](https://github.com/OBF/newsletter/issues/13), or contact Yo Yehudi ([Twitter: @yoyehudi](https://twitter.com/yoyehudi), [Email: [e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail])) if you're not sure whether or not your content is suitable for our newsletter - we're looking for content that's primarily open source / science related.