The partners in the HEAP Consortia will gather for a three-day, virtual Hackathon event from December 16-18 2020. The event marks the end of the first year of the HEAP project, and will take a hands on, “Bring Your Own Data” approach. Participants include IT and ethical experts, and data providers from some of Europe’s leading medical institutions, and their mission will be to test the upload of biobank and national health registry data into the HEAP platform’s recently-developed system architecture. 

Organised jointly by Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and the Medical University of Graz, the “Bring Your Own Data” workshop will give participants an overview of the main features of the HEAP platform, including the Information Commons and the Hopsworks Informatics Platform. 

The workshop will also address practical questions, such as: 

– How to manage and harmonise metadata from a wide range of data sources, including data from consumer receipts, and sequencing data from biosamples?

– What steps will be needed to process the data ethically and legally?

 Anouk Berger, Head of IARC’s Education and Training Group, said “Another important task during the “Bring Your Own Data” workshop is to define the training that will be needed to use the platform once it is delivered. We will do this by developing “personas”, to reflect the future users of HEAP and their various professional roles – and asking questions such as; “What sort of data will they have?”, and “What sort of research questions will they need answering?” 

Heimo Muller, the Hackathon co-organiser from the Medical University of Graz, said “This workshop represents the first “on the ground” test of HEAP by its future users. We are looking forward to getting hands on with the data and starting to see how the HEAP platform will work in practice.” 

Roxana Merino of Karolinska Institutet said “We expect to leave the workshop with a common set of metadata which will allow the next stage of the HEAP platform to be developed and tested.”

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