Who Are We?
The Toronto Bioinformatics Hackathon is a student-led computational biology hackathon, bringing together early career bioinformaticians, molecular biologists, statisticians, and computer scientists from Toronto’s Discovery District to complete interdisciplinary projects that emphasize computational and entrepreneurial thinking.
In partnership with the Terrence Donnelly Centre and the Temerty Faculty of Medicine's Computational Biology in Molecular Genetics program, our participants will collaborate to propose innovative solutions to key challenges in computational biology with commercialization potential.
Date: Friday September 19th to Sunday September 21st, 2025
Location: Terrence Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research
160 College St, Toronto, Canada
Requirements
*Apply at hackbio.ca to participate in the event. Any submissions from individuals/teams that are not verified hackers will not be considered!*
You must submit your project to Devpost by 1:00 PM EST on September 21st. Your submission must have an abstract summarizing your project and/or a video demoing your project. Include a link to your code (e.g. a GitHub repo), and identify any tools, databases, etc. you used.
We will be having an in-person judging round where you will be allocated a 30 minute window in the 2.5 hour judging session. A presentation/slide show would be highly recommended for explaining your project to all who stop by!
Presentations should be less than 8 minutes with 5 minutes of questions. You will be presenting twice to different sets of judges in your allocated window. This is done to ensure fairness for each team!
Devpost Requirements:
• All team members must sign up on Devpost.
• Abstract of your project in the project description.
• GitHub Link to the repo with all your code.
Prizes
First Place
$1,500 split among team members
Second Place
$500 split among team members
CCBR Innovation Award
Awarded by the Donnelly Centre (CCBR) with a larger emphasis on innovation and commercialization; $1,500 split among team members
MVP Award / Collaborative Champion
Highlights an individual who championed teaching and tutoring during the event; $200 awarded to the individual
Devpost Achievements
Submitting to this hackathon could earn you:
Judges
Dr. Aleksandrina Goeva
University of Toronto
Dr. Jeff Wintersinger
Deep Genomics
Dr. Robin McDougall
Recursion Pharmaceuticals
Dr. Owen Whitley
Roche Canada
Jacob Fine
University of Toronto
Elia Afanasiev
Goeva Lab, University of Toronto
Emily Hashimoto-Roth
University of Toronto
Ira Horecka
University of Toronto
Judging Criteria
-
Interdisciplinary Integration
Degree to which projects integrate aspects of multiple fields. -
Software Design and Architecture
Factors include: portability, soundness, accessibility of the software component. -
Project Design
Usability, advancement and usefulness, ethical and safety considerations. -
Completeness and Status
Degree of achieved work and learning opportunity grasped.
Questions? Email the hackathon manager
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