Participants of the NFDI DataXplorers Hackathon present impressive results in Frankfurt

Almost 50 participants from 28 institutions took part in the final of the DataXplorers hackathon – and presented great tools and services after just six weeks of implementation.

Our DataXplorers cross-community hackathon concluded with an inspiring hybrid event on December 5 and 6 in Frankfurt am Main. (You can read all about the start of the hackathon in October here.) Challenge providers, participants of the hackathon, and interested audiences from the community came together to present the accomplishments of their work, engage in discussions about future steps, and foster valuable connections. The event was joined by 20 in-person and 29 remote participants from 28 different institutions.

Kristin Sauerland

The hackathon was jointly organized by the NFDI4Earth Academy, NFDI4Biodiversity, and NFDI4Microbiota and focussed on developing tools and working on data bridging the different communities. The technical infrastructure was provided by de.NBI. Several NFDI4Biodiversity partners from the Bavarian State Archives (GDA), Bielefeld University, and Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development were planning and supervising the hackathon challenges. The DataXplorers hackathon started with an online kick-off event on October 23 and offered six challenges, four of which were actively pursued. 

Q&A tools answers data management questions

The teams achieved astonishing results within only six weeks of working time. In one of the challenges, which was jointly organized by partners of the Bavarian State Archives and the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), three teams worked towards the aim of an automatic colour inspection of directories or collections of scanned historical maps, their sorting according to colour information, and the determination of land use classes. Each team found its own approach to tackling the challenge. Further, a total of 60 historical maps were digitized and will be made publicly available in the process. 

In another challenge led by partners of the TU Dresden the team developed a prototype version of a web- and large language model-based Q&A tool that assists researchers in finding answers on RDM topics. The goal is to further develop this prototype and to bring it to usein the context of an NFDI-wide service.

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Report on hackathon content and implementation in progress

A more educational approach was pursued in another challenge, organized by partners of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, where several teams were introduced to work with data cubes. The teams learned how to link climatological datasets to species distribution data and, thus how to access data from different sources, and to combine vector data and data cubes.

In a fourth challenge led by partners of the Leibniz-Institut für Analytische Wissenschaften (ISAS) and developed the prototype of a user-friendly web service that transfers metaproteomics data into standard formats and enriches them with further information and metadata. The team continues working on improving the functionalities of the prototype and aims to make it available for other data types.

All results, along with a comprehensive report, will soon be made publicly available in the DataXplorers Zenodo Community. 

We extend our sincere gratitude to all participants, organizers, and partners for making the DataXplorers hackathon a success!

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