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tags: obf
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_This email was sent to the email to the [bosc-announce](http://mailman.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bosc-announce/) and [open-bio-l](http://mailman.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/open-bio-l/) lists._

# OBF Newsletter September 2021

TL;DR: The OBF is having a public board meeting on Sept 21. Our next event fellowship application deadline is Oct 1.

In longer form:

## OBF News

### The OBF is having a public board meeting

The OBF will hold a public board meeting online on September 21 at 17:00 UTC. A big topic on the agenda is the election of new board members. You can read more on the [OBF blog](https://www.open-bio.org/2021/09/11/obf-public-board-meeting-2021-09-21/).

### OBF Event Fellowships

Our [call for applications is open again, with a **deadline on October 1st**](https://www.open-bio.org/event-awards/). We invite applications for financial support to attend or (new!) host virtual events in 2021.

The fellowship can be used to cover registration fees for relevant events, and potentially additional expenses such as small hardware (e.g. a headset or webcam), childcare for the duration of the event or high-speed internet.

Due to the ongoing pandemic and lockdowns & travel restrictions associated with it we again will only consider virtual events.

[Read more about applying for an OBF Event Fellowship](https://www.open-bio.org/2021/08/18/obf-event-fellowship-second-call-2021/), and [see reports from some of the past awardees](https://www.open-bio.org/category/travel-fellowship/event-fellowship/).

### BOSC news

[BOSC 2021](https://www.open-bio.org/events/bosc/) took place online in July as part of ISMB/ECCB 2021. Nearly 200 people participated in BOSC sessions, which included 27 talks reviewed and selected from submitted abstracts and three invited keynote talks representing a range of global perspectives on the role of open science and open source in driving research and inclusivity in the biosciences, one of which was presented in French with English subtitles. All of the BOSC 2021 talk videos, as well as poster videos that were submitted, are available [on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLir-OOQiOhXZ6jV_cld3Hp-C_0m4aCznk).
A report about BOSC 2021 is in progress, and will appear as part of the [BOSC collection on F1000](https://f1000research.com/collections/bosc).

### Google Summer of Code
The OBF sponsored [eight students for GSoC this year](https://www.open-bio.org/2021/06/17/eight-incredible-gsoc-students-for-the-obf-this-year-%e2%98%80%ef%b8%8f/).

## Community updates

### AutSPACEs for Open Humans Newsletter

The AutSPACEs project is a unique citizen science project using participatory methods to gain a better understanding of the experiences autistic people have on how their sensory processes have been impacted when navigating public environments.

This is a collaboration project, led by the Alan Turing Institute, Autistica and Open Humans to develop a platform to collect real life stories from autistic people and using Open Humans to store all our data.

Their [onboarding pack](https://github.com/alan-turing-institute/AutisticaCitizenScience/tree/master/get-involved/onboarding-pack) contains key information on the project and how you could get involved including links to our GitHub repositories and social media platforms.

### 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/17), or contact Bastian Greshake Tzovaras ([Twitter: @gedankenstuecke](https://twitter.com/gedankenstuecke), [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.