Presenter Information

As you plan your participation as a presenter please find below details to assist you with your specific presentation type at the conference:

1. Pre-recorded Talks
2. Poster presentation
3. Recorded Presentation Guidelines for Virtual Events
4. Live Stream Speaker Instructions
5. Live Presentation Guidelines for Virtual Events
6. How to record a PowerPoint Presentation

   ---

   Pre-recorded Talks
   

Those presenting a pre-recorded talk at ISCB-Africa ASBCB 2021 should prepare their recording per the information below:

• Flash Talk (4 minute time slot) = 3 minutes talk plus 1 minutes live Q&A
• Article Talk (12 minute time slot) = 8 minutes talk plus 4 minutes live Q&A
  

Slides should be widescreen 16x9 ratio which export best to 1080p videos.

Keynotes will have a 30 minute block. We recommend a 20 minute talk with 5 minutes each for introduction and Q&A.

Some helpful tips on planning your recorded talk are available below

The deadline to submit the recording is Friday June 4, 2021.

- top -

Poster Presentations

Presenters of a poster presentation at ISCB-Africa ASBCB 2021 are allowed a maximum 3 minutes.

You need to provide the following when uploading your poster and video.

• PDF or .jpg (4000x3000 pixels) of your poster with a maximum file size of 40 MB.
• Save your presentation as an MP4 file starting with your EasyChair submission number (if applicable), followed by presenters last name, first name, and designated track.
  a) If you are a COVID-19 talk please prefix your submission number with a 'C' for COVID-19. (Example C100 for proceedings with a submission ID of 100)
• Slides should be widescreen16x9 ratio which export best to 1080p videos.

Some helpful tips on planning your recorded talk are available below

Presenting your poster in a lighting style format using the PechaKucha or Ignite talks presentation style or a single slide or PDF is an option for presenters.

Here is a example of a presentation: https://youtu.be/rbLbb7eOao8

The deadline to submit the recording is Friday June 4, 2021.

- top -

Recorded Presentation Guidlines for Virtual Events

Download Guidlines

- top -

Live Stream Speaker Instructions

Thank you for your willingness to participate in the ISCB-Africa ASBCB 2021 virtual conference!

To make sure you look and sound your best, we have a couple of items we'd like to go over, below:

1. If possible, please have one other person available to stand by in the room with you during the time you are with us, in case you need anything, or we need anything during the webcast. While you are presenting, we need to communicate something important, and you may not see our Zoom chat messages. Similarly if you need something yourself, it's great to have someone else there to help. If you don't have someone else available, no problem.
2. Please make sure your headset is plugged in and working properly, prior to joining the Zoom meeting. If you don't have a good working microphone headset, please consider getting one as soon as possible from Amazon, Best Buy, or Target. Please remember delivery times are now longer.
3. Please make sure to set your computer monitor to the highest resolution possible (1920x1080 or higher preferred, if possible). To do this, go into the "Display" settings on your computer. There should be a setting for "Display Resolution" usually with a dropdown menu of different dimensions. Be sure to pick the one that says "1920x1080." If there is a setting that has higher numbers, choose the highest possible numbers.
4. Please make sure that while you are logged on with us that you are not competing for bandwidth with other household or office mates - we need them to suspend heavy bandwidth activities during the time you are with us.
5. To make sure in advance that you are ready and comfortable, we need you to go to the URL for our speaker "Green Room," (which we will send to you) one hour prior to your speaking time.
6. Once you enter the Green Room, we will test your audio and video, check to make sure your slides look good, if you have any, and make sure you are familiar with how to share your screen. If you have a video to play back, we will need the file to be sent to us in advance to the above email address, and while you are on with us, we will make sure we have it properly identified, and that it plays back okay.
7. Once you are good to go, we will transfer you to our Production Room, where you can watch the video of the other speakers until it is your turn. When it is time, and we are ready for you to begin your presentation, you will hear the meeting host introducing you, and we will send you a message asking you to now share your screen (please, right away, click on the small green button with the black arrow facing up that is in the middle of the bottom of your Zoom screen). You will NOT need to share your screen if you do not have any slides or anything else to share visually. Just remind us, if we erroneously ask you to share your screen, that you do not have anything to share. You will also need to make sure your video camera is turned on by clicking on the VIDEO button at the bottom of the screen.
8. While presenting, please don't be shy about looking directly at your webcam. When you do that, you are essentially making eye contact directly with us, your viewers. That will be much better received by the audience than if the webcam gets limited or no eye contact.
9. When you are done with your presentation, there may be time for Q&A, and if so, you will here the host ask the questions, and you will keep going. No need to stop sharing your screen. When Q&A is done, you can stop sharing your screen. You will continue to be able to watch the webcast. If there are any group discussions, you will be able to participate by just talking and looking at your webcam, but we will not need you to share your screen.

Please note that we will be with you at all times, ready to help if you need anything. The most important thing is to try to relax and enjoy delivering your presentation - that makes a huge difference. Please let us know if you have any questions.

- top -

Live Presentation Guidelines for Virtual Events

Download Guidelines

- top -

How to Record a Powerpoint Presentation

How to record a power point presentation

- top -

Tutorials & Workshops

ISCB-Africa ASBCB Conference 2021 is pleased to offer the following five tutorials and workshops. Registration to the tutorials and workshops is complimentary with conference registration; due to limited capacities conference registration is required.

June 7, 2021 Morning Tutorials and Workshops

Infectious Diseases Genomics Workshop (RNA seq data analysis in Linux)

Malaria vector control is currently dependent on a single class of insecticides. Pyrethroids are the most widely used and are the main class recommended by WHO. RNA seq has been rapidly adopted for the profiling of transcriptomes in many areas of biology. In this workshop, we will sketch RNA seq analysis of datasets conferring the metabolic resistance to pyrethroids in the mosquito Anopheles funestus, a major malaria vector in Africa.

Lead Trainer:
Lambert Nzungize, PhD, Center for Research in Infectious Diseases, CRID-Cameroun; Synbio_Rwanda

Workshop maximum capacity: TBD

Requirements:
A fast and reliable laptop with Linux OS (dual boot):
Dell XPS 15 9500 15.6 inch UHD+ Touchscreen Laptop
Intel Core i7-10750H 10th Gen, 16 GB DDR4 RAM, 1 TB SSD,
Nvidia GTX 1650 Ti with 4 GB GDDR6

Learning Adventures on Bioinformatics Data Investigations

There is a continuous need for researchers who can successfully conduct bioinformatics data investigations for innovative solutions to societal challenges in food, health, energy and environment.

 Upon the completion of the workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Identify bioinformatics research categories.
2. Explain the stages of bioinformatics data investigation.
3. Conduct a bioinformatics data investigation.
4. Identify strategies for designing and delivering learning adventures.

The 2.5 hours workshop is for individuals interested in teaching, learning or conducting bioinformatics data investigations. Participant prizes during the adventures include career development sessions including cover letter and resume reviews for global bioinformatics positions.

Tutorial Presenters:
Raphael D. Isokpehi, Center for Trans-Disciplinary Data Analytics, Bethune-Cookman University, USA; H3ABioNet University of Ibadan Bioinformatics Group Node, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Angela Makolo, H3ABioNet University of Ibadan Bioinformatics Group Node, University of Ibadan, Nigeria Bukola Smile, H3ABioNet University of Ibadan Bioinformatics Group Node, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Junell McCall, Center for Trans-Disciplinary Data Analytics, Bethune-Cookman University, USA

Workshop maximum capacity: TBD

June 7, 2021 Afternoon Tutorials and Workshops

An introduction to biomedical text mining in the era of deep learning

This tutorial aims to familiarize the audience with an introduction to text mining the biomedical literature using deep learning methods. The tutorial will address questions such as “What is biomedical text mining?”, “What is deep learning?”, “How can deep learning be applied to address biomedical text mining problems?”, and “What biomedical text mining tools are currently available?”. The tutorial will cover the basics of biomedical text mining and deep learning. The latest deep learning methods in biomedical text mining will also be explained and discussed. Also, the audience will have the opportunity to learn common biomedical datasets and open challenge tasks which have been developed for over a decade by the community. After attending the tutorial, the participants are expected to:

• Understand the basics of biomedical text mining pipeline
• Understand the basics of deep learning in biomedical text mining applications
• Familiar with current biomedical text mining tools and servers
• Familiar with current biomedical datasets and challenge tasks

Tutorial Presenters:
Qingyu Chen, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
Robert Leaman, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health
Cecilia Arighi, Delaware Biotechnology Institute, University of Delaware
Zhiyong Lu, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

Workshop maximum capacity: 60

Tools for reproducible research in Bioinformatics

The reproducibility of bioinformatics analysis is a major challenge in OMICS research. Overlooking this aspect may jeopardize research projects at different levels including the collaboration stream, interpretability of data, reliability, and many others. Operating computational studies within a reproducible framework is a critical ability for bioinformaticians. The proposed workshop aims to increase awareness about the importance of reproducibility within the community of African researchers by providing theoretical knowledge and practical training to the participants. Ultimately, we are seeking to establish the reproducibility mindset as a collection of innate practices, set to be deployed explicitly or implicitly in the research environment.

Tutorial Presenters:
Houcemeddine Othman, Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Jorge da Rocha, Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Phelelani Mpangase, Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Scott Hazelhurst, Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Workshop maximum capacity: TBD

June 9, 2021 Tutorials and Workshops

From idea to a brilliant company - ways to build academic commercialization programs, create startups, validate market and bring innovation to society

There is much innovation happening in the academia around the world but very few institutions understand how to build successful companies and help get that innovation into the marketplace. This workshop will analyze best cases for academic innovation program based on the University of Pennsylvania UPstart program. However, it is not enough to just start a company, it is important to validate that the product or services are indeed needed in the market. Pretotyping is a new market validation approach, and this workshop will introduce a concept of Pretotyping to anyone interested in building a successful company.

Lead Trainer:
Karina Sotnik, WorldUpstart

Workshop maximum capacity: TBD

- top -

NIH-ASBCB Code-a-thon

The National Institutes of Health Office of Data Science Strategy, in partnership with the African Society for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (ASBCB), is pleased to announce a virtual omics-focused codeathon on June 3-6, 2021, immediately preceding the ISCB-Africa ASBCB Conference on Bioinformatics, June 7-10.  Participant applications are due May 21.

This event is free and open to all life science researchers, data scientists and coders. Codeathon participants will increase their capacity building, hone their bioinformatics and data science skills, and build new relationships during this four-day event.

Participants will be selected based on experience and motivation to attend. Applicants confirming their participation are expected to participate in the full event.

Scientists at any stage of their data science journey are encouraged to apply. Codeathon teams will benefit from team members with any of the following skills:

• Analyzing sequencing data types
• Working knowledge of scripting
• Familiarity with methods for manipulating and/or analyzing large datasets
• Developing bioinformatics code, pipelines or tools
• Data visualization
• Machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques
• Cloud computing

Interested participants should apply by May 21. Questions about this event may be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

For more information visit https://datascience.nih.gov/news/request-for-proposals-asbcb-omics-codeathon

- top -

Call for Workshops and Tutorials

We invite scientists and professionals working in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology to submit high-quality proposals for tutorials, workshops or mini-courses (tutorial program) to take place virtually as part of ISCB-Africa ASBCB 2021.

The workshop and tutorial sessions aim to provide an opportunity to discuss current and emergent topics on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. These sessions can be both 6 hour sessions or 2.5 hour sessions to take place on the 7th June 2021.

Workshop and tutorials will be held in a virtual training environment.  Workshop and tutorial leaders should be prepared to teach using online tools such as Zoom.

We will host simultaneous workshops or tutorials.

- top -

Guidelines for Proposals

Proposals should contain the necessary information for reviewers to judge the importance, quality and community interest in the proposed topic. Each proposed event should have one or more designated organizers and a program. The proposal should contain the following information:

• Title
• Description of the aim or aims of the workshop/tutorial
• Why is it relevant for the community
• Proposed schedule, specify if it is a half day or full day event
• Provide the names and affiliations of the organizers
• Any special requirements regarding logistics that needs to be communicated to the participants.
• The length of the proposals should be 500 words including all sections.

- top -

Proposal Submission

CLICK HERE to submit your workshop proposals. 

Deadline for submissions: April 12, 2021
Notification of decision:  April 30, 2021

- top -

Sponsorship Opportunities

Support ISCB and ASBCB with these virtual sponsorship opportunities!

• Logo, description, contact information, demo video (up to seven minutes) in the ISCB ASBCB Marketplace
  
• Logo included on website
  
• One conference registration                             

• All of basic plus…
• Rotating Banner Advertisement (30 days) in the Research Exchange Forum
  

• All of basic and silver plus…
• Commercial at the start of one of the conference days
  
• Dedicated networking table within platform
• Additional conference registration - that's two for you!

- top -

Meet the ASBCB COSIs

Population Genomics in Africa (AfriPopGen)

The AfriPopGen COSI is a forum for exchange and collaboration among students, postdocs, and senior researchers with a special interest in population genomics and variant interpretation relevant to African populations.

The COSI maintains a Twitter account (@AfriPopGen) as well as a google group and slack channel under the ASBCB for communication.

To join the AfriPopGen COSI, please register here.

- top -

Pathogen (Afripathogen)

The Pathogen Genomics Community of Special Interest (Afripathogen COSI) focuses on the bioinformatics of human and non-human pathogens, ideally with a genome <1Gb. We aim to promote best practices, use of various bioinformatics tools and web interfaces, workflows and pipelines. We also provide an ideal space to discuss challenges faced in our different settings. We hold regular online meetings which consist of presentations and break-out sessions to enhance networking.

Are you an African researcher working on pathogen genomics?

Join us today and meet like-minded fellows!

- top -

Agricultural Bioinformatics (AfriAgricultural)

As we try to feed an ever-increasing global population, the world is facing multiple challenges, from climate change to the threat of pandemics and zoonoses. Today more than ever, agricultural biosciences are needed to understand the genomics and the phenomics of crops, livestock and their pathogens. This COSI is meant to provide a scientific forum for all African scientists interested in genomics and bioinformatics for all the species of agricultural relevance.

It's a fascinating world, spanning a large diversity of organisms and their genomes, from e.g the 190 kbp of the African swine fever virus genome, to the astonishing 17Gbp (several times the size of the human genome!) of the triploid wheat genome.

If you are interested in working in complex bioinformatics issues with a direct impact on innumerable livelihoods on the continent, please join us in ASBCB's Agricultural Bioinformatics COSI!

- top -

Metaomics

The MetaOmics COSI is a group of like minded individuals with an interest in multi-omics approaches in agriculture, health and diseases, and environmental research. The focus in this group is on both the laboratory and bioinformatic techniques and developments within the meta-omics discipline and we welcome members with diverse backgrounds and special interest in metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics and metabolomics. 

- top -

Structural Biology (StructBio)

 With the increasing number and diversity of macromolecules in the Protein Data Bank (PDB), it is becoming more and more possible to use such data for making rapid biological inferences. The time needed to produce and study previously unseen SARS-CoV-2 proteins is an encouraging example of what is achievable from the collaboration between wet lab researchers and bioinformaticians around the world to yield actionable outcomes from molecular biological data. In the same spirit, the Afristructuralbio CoSI is a group of African researchers with diverse backgrounds and interests intersecting the fields of structural biology and structural bioinformatics, with the aim of sharing and discussing our research. We hope that by such an initiative to spur new research ideas and outputs in this exciting field.

- top -

Systems Administration (SySAdmin)

- top -

Register

Registration now open!

Registering to participate in the ISCB-Africa ASBCB Conference on Bioinformatics is more than just registering to attend a three-day virtual event.  Participants from developing countries (low and middle-low income World Bank status economies) registration includes membership to both ISCB and ASCBC for up to two years!  You get all of the benefits of both societies and access to the virtual conference.

Conference & Membership Fees:

Low and Middle-Low Income World Bank Status Economies

Registration now open!

One year of membership extension to both ASBCB and ISCB and conference access for participants joining from developing countries!

Up to two years of membership to both ASBCB and ISCB and conference access for participants joining from developing countries!

High Income World Bank Status Economies

Registration now open!

One year of membership extension to both ASBCB and ISCB and conference access for participants joining from developing countries!

- top -

Key Dates

- top -