The goal of the hackathon is to bring together researchers interested in developing executable models of the fruit fly brain. Towards that end we will engage systems and computational neuroscientists in modeling, design, implementation and biological validation of an open-source emulation platform of the whole fruit fly brain. All hackathon participants will be provided with an Amazon Machine Image of the recently developed open-source Neurokernel platform for executable fruit fly brain circuits.
The hackathon is aimed at three main groups of participants: biologists, modelers and software engineers. For biologists, the hackathon focuses on the intuitive modeling and representation of biological data, such as anatomical and recordings data of the fruit fly brain, in the NeuroArch database. For modelers, the hackathon aims at creating/modifying models of neuropils that are compliant with the Neurokernel API. For software engineers, the hackathon focuses on improving the Neurokernel platform and its API, and developing new, proof-of-concept features that are needed by biologists and modelers alike. All hackathon participants will be strongly encouraged to collaborate towards the realization of executable fruit fly brain models.
The Fruit Fly Brain Hackathon is organized in conjunction with the Columbia Workshop on Brain Circuit, Memory and Computation on March 18-19, 2016. Participants of the hackathon are welcome to attend the workshop.
Registration is free but all participants have to register (https://fruit-fly-brain-hackathon16.eventbrite.com/).
Organizers:
Paul Richmond, Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield
Adam Tomkins, Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield
Nikul Ukani, Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University
Yiyin Zhou, Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University
More information can be found on the hackathon website:
http://www.bionet.ee.columbia.edu/hackathons/ffbh/2016