U of C’s first ever bioinformatics hackathon to take place
By Ansharah Shakil, March 7 2025—
University of Calgary clubs Bioinformatics Club (BINF) and Artificial Intelligence in Medical Systems Society (AIMSS) are joining forces to host BioHack, a free health hackathon that will be the first bioinformatics-focused hackathon at the university, taking place from March 8-9.
Taking place over two days, BioHack is open to high school, undergraduate and graduate students and will provide food and prizes. In an interview with the Gauntlet, VP Outreach at BINF Vipula Sundar discussed the exciting and one-of-a-kind aspects of the hackathon, as well as the contributions of the events team, marketing team and presidents of the club.
“It’s really been a team effort,” Sundar said. “It’s been a long time coming […] our goal has always been to provide people with opportunities to practice bioinformatics and explore that in a very hands-on, interactive way.”
Bringing bioinformatics to the main campus has also been a priority, since many club activities were geared towards Bioinformatics majors who spent a lot of their time in the Foothills campus.
“The main goal is definitely […] encouraging people with computer science experience to explore an avenue for their skills in biology and vice versa, encouraging those with biology experience to try out using computational tools to solve the problems they normally encounter in biology,” Sundar said.
BioHack will have industry professionals as well as professors as guests and judges. An important goal for the hackathon is encouraging collaboration and bringing in multiple perspectives regarding the topics of building skills in biology and health sciences.
“There’s so much need for people with this specific skill-set, and yet so few people know about it,” Sundar said. “A fun, informal low-stakes event is really the best way to kind of bring people in […] you’re here to learn which I think is the best part of the event.”
Sundar noted bioinformatics is a growing field, one that is by necessity interdisciplinary.
“In science, we do a lot of data collection because this is how we measure the world that we see around us,” she explained. “At one point you acquire so much data that it’s beyond the realm of just data collection, because now you need to find out ways to manage it. This is where we start using computational tools [and] computers because they can process large amounts of data in shorter amounts of time. But we still need people to tell the computers what to do and find creative solutions to work with a computer and […] decode data in the context of biology.”
As a Bioinformatics major in her second year, Sundar joined the club because of the niche subject matter and her desire to learn more about it. She looks forward to being able to interact with people outside of the major at the hackathon.
“Hackathons are a great way to meet new people and to work in groups and exchange ideas. I love my major and I love the people in it but we are a small cohort so I’m really looking forward to seeing how other people heard about bioinformatics,” she said.
The hackathon is open to everyone, even those who have minimal experience, and will have an introductory track — including workshops and other helpful resources — and a competitive track — involving creating a project on the topic of AI use and data analysis. Teams of two to four are required, but teammates can be located on the website for the hackathon and the club’s discord.
“I myself am not familiar with hackathons, so it’s a place for everyone to come and learn something new,” Sundar said, encouraging students to attend. “Just being a participant is in its own right a victory, because there are so few hackathons of this type going on.”
More information and registration for students to join the hackathon can be found here.