The Pre-COSYNE Brainhack 2025
Everything you need to know about the Pre-COSYNE Brainhack 2025 in Montreal, Canada.
Applications are now open! Please see more information below.
Overview
The Pre-COSYNE Brainhack is a lively event that brings together people who are passionate about open science, open-source tools, and collaboration around computational and systems neuroscience. The hackathon provides an opportunity for people from different institutions to work together on projects of shared interest and learn from each other. Projects can be on anything from integrating a data visualization tool with an analysis tool, to training an LLM to extract knowledge from neuroscience papers, to developing a tool for tracking the usage of a software package in papers.
Apply here. Please apply by January 10, 2025. Space is limited to 50 participants.
This hackathon is heavily inspired by the OHBM Hackathon, BrainHack, and EBRAINS / HBP / NeuralEnsemble CodeJam events. Pre-COSYNE Brainhack is not an official part of the COSYNE conference.
If you cannot attend but would like to be notified of future events, please join for our mailing list.
Dates
The hackathon runs from March 25–26, 2025 — the two days preceding the COSYNE conference.
It consists of:
- brief project pitches at the start,
- brief project presentations at the end,
- a speed networking session in the middle, and
- an unconference session in the middle.
The rest of the time is dedicated to hacking and meals.
The event runs from 8:30 AM to around 6:30 PM on both days, though participants are welcome to hack together into the night. See our tentative schedule for further details.
Since the hackathon is relatively short in duration, participants are strongly encouraged to arrive in Montreal by 6 PM the day before the hackathon (Mar. 24) to join other participants for dinner and socializing.
Hackathon Format and Team Formation
This year, we are trying a new hackathon format designed to promote collaboration across research groups and mixing of ideas. In the application form, each participant will be asked to select a set of scientific and techncial interests and to describe their technical skill level. We will assign participants with similar interests into teams of 2-3 people. We also aim to form teams that are balanced between novice and programming experts so that there are opportunities to teach and learn; however, if you prefer to work only with experienced programmers, you may indicate that in the application form. Each team will be asked to connect prior to the hackathon to discuss interests and project ideas and to decide on a project to work on during the hackathon. We are excited to see the innovative projects that will arise from this format and look forward to an inspiring and productive hackathon!
Past Projects
Previously, participants have hacked on:
- benchmarking spike sorting methods
- creating codecs for multiphoton imaging
- adding GPU acceleration to Pynapple
- enhancing SLEAP and NWB integration
- exploring compression, denoising, and fingerprinting of ephys waveforms with Singular Spectrum Analysis
- integrating RasterVis with figurl and NWB
- simulating spiking activity of the entire fly brain using the fly connectome
- storing AIND metadata in NWB files
- enhancing two-photon data visualization in Neurosift
- judging which bakery makes the best Pastéis de Nata
Location
The hackathon will be hosted by Mila at 6650 Rue Saint Urbain, Montreal, Canada.
Sponsors
Pre-COSYNE Brainhack 2025 is sponsored by the International Brain Lab, Simons Foundation, and Mila.
Organizers
Pre-COSYNE Brainhack 2025 is organized by Elnaz Alikarami, Florian Rau, Gaëlle Chapuis, Guillaume Viejo, Olivier Winter, and Ryan Ly.