Biohack

WELCOME TO

31 Washington Pl, NYC, NY | Waverly Building, Room 500
OCT 16, 2024 | NOV 9, 2024

MISSION

We invite you to join us at 2nd annual BioHack New York City: an AI-in-Bio hackathon that will bring together computer scientists and biologists to build AI/ML tools that will accelerate research in the life sciences. Intended to facilitate collaboration between computer scientists and biologists, BioHack NYC will feature speakers & mentors who are creating impact using AI in biology as well as datasets and other tools to help teams develop and build their ideas. We encourage using software and generative AI to create computational tools that will make the research/discovery process simpler and easier. You don't need an idea or to be an expert in AI or biology, being interested in either (or both) is enough!

Registration

Kick-Off

6:30pm-8:30pm

Wednesday, October 16th, 2024

📍 16 Washington Place | New York, NY 10003

Saturday, November 9th, 2024

Hacking & Final Pitch

📍 NYU, NYC

Applications to BioHack are open to people of any age and you do not have to be affiliated with a university or institute.

The BioHack has been designed for curious, motivated people with a focus on those who have biology and/or computer science experience. What does this mean? Below we outline some broad descriptions to help guide you but this does not cover everything and if you feel your backgrounds/ideas are suitable for the BioHack then please apply!

🧬 By biologist we mean: anyone with background in life sciences! Be that pure biology, biochemistry, ecology, biomedical science, genetics, plant sciences, microbiology, mycology, zoology neurobiology, pathology… etc etc.

💻 By computer scientist we mean: people competent at coding and excited to build stuff! You can have a computer science education, but other backgrounds (engineering, physics, whatever …) are also welcome if you feel comfortable building your own software and solving novel problems computationally.

🧚🏼‍♀️ Whilst the BioHack is primarily focused on biologists and computer scientists, we welcome applications from everyone, no matter their background so if you think you’d be great at building AI-based tools for the life sciences, we’d love to see your application!
The event takes place in New York over two weekends, October 16th and November 9th.
We kick off the event on October 16th with the team formation phase, networking, and a panel discussion. On November 9th, you will have all day to build, get feedback from mentors, and present in front of expert judges and the audience. **In person attendance is required for the entire duration of the event so please only apply if you know you can make it.**
Apply at the following link. Registration is free!
The application deadline is October 14th, 2024.
We will contact successful applicants with further information by October 15th. Apply early for a better chance of taking part!
This is a one-day hackathon for ~50 computer science and/or biology background participants to design AI-based tools to facilitate life sciences research. You will be surrounded by other talented people and this will be a great opportunity to build something new and useful. Once you are confirmed as an attendee, you will be added to a Discord channel. The Discord channel will be used as a platform for team formation and idea discussion. Participants will be able to able to post their backgrounds in the intro channel and pitch their ideas in the pitching channel. We encourage everyone to pitch! Datasets will also be provided to help with ideation. Teams can then form around the pitched ideas and you can organise calls/meetings with your team to introduce yourselves and think about what you’ll build on the day. **We expect everyone to be in a team by end of Friday October 19, 2024.** You will have two weeks to work on your ideas before the final hackathon day on November 9, 2024.
On November 9th, we will all meet at 8 am in New York in person and begin an exciting day of networking, discussions and most importantly building! We will have expert mentors present to guide you through building AI tools for Biology as well as datasets and credits to help you further. The event is generously supported by Nucleate NY.
Yes, we will be providing food! There will be plenty of vegetarian and vegan options as well as snacks throughout the day. If you have any severe allergies we need to be aware of, please let us know. We’ll also have plenty of water, tea and coffee.

We encourage everyone to pitch their ideas no matter how far developed they are, but don’t worry if you don’t have one yet - maybe you’ll be inspired by someone else’s idea and join their team. No stress.
The goal of community hackathons is that you meet new people and unlock new possibilities. So you can hack in your team but we really encourage you to welcome newcomers too.
This event is designed to be a fun and friendly environment to play with new ideas and technologies. As this is just for fun, once you’ve pitched your idea it belongs to your team but we would be glad to help you with our sponsors if you do think you need help with taking your ideas further.
Yes and no. The goal is for everyone to have fun and push the limits of what they thought was possible to build in a day. At the end of the day, each team will pitch and a prizes will be awarded for the ideas that our judges consider to be the best in their view!
Your team can use anything you want. Please note any costs related to accessing those tools is on you. That said, we are hoping to be able to provide access to certain tools during the hackathon.