Hello all,
*Introductions and limit?* Please Welcome Sonika Tyagi, Monash University, Melbourne Harpreet Singh, Head of Bioinformatics, HMV Jalandhar, Punjab
To the Galaxy India planning group. I will let them introduce themselves (I have known Sonika electronically for 3 years, but I don't think I have ever met either of them in person.
And that puts us at 8 people on 4 continents, 6 of us with ties to India, and two of us from the core Galaxy Project. *I suggest that 8 is a good number for this core group and that we resist further increasing our size beyond that.*
And, I encourage everyone to introduce themselves as well. I'll start.
I help coordinate training and outreach for the Galaxy Project, and have been doing this for 8 years. Before that I did the same for the GMOD Project. I'm a computer person by training, and I first stumbled into bioinformatics in 2000. *I have no particular knowledge of India.* https://galaxyproject.org/people/dave-clements/
Now, I'll try to summarize what's been going on. (Please add in whatever I forget.)
*Online Community First* We are planning to start as an online community first, with a Twitter account (got it), mailing list (probably this one after we clear out these early emails), and a Gitter channel (easy). We have not decided when to launch / announce all this.
*Connections* Anshu Bhardwaj (OSDD + more) has suggested linking any training with the Skills India Program, and coordinating any launch we did with Nature India.
*Events Next* Anshu and Pratik Jagtap (Galaxy-P + more) have been discussing a possible workshop-meeting in India in 2020, possibly at CSIR-IMTECH, and possibly focusing on proteomics. We also have Glory Basumata at IIT Guwahati, so that may be an option too. This event (or events) may be a good opportunity / time to launch the community. We could also launch a training program and/or coordinate training efforts in India.
*Funding And Stability* Funding assures that this effort continues, and that someone somewhere is being paid to coordinate things. I don't know anything about funding in India, but you all do. :-)
In the short term, Mo Heydarian (Galaxy + more) and I can probably convince our funders to support participant scholarships for any events. We can also try valiantly to get a Galaxy PI to a launch event (but we can't guarantee it).
No matter what the funding picture is, Mo and I will provide maximum promotion, just like we do now for other communities
*Platform?* In the long term we may want to support a UseGalaxy.in platform. Kiran Telukunta (U Freiburg + more) already owns the URL. :-) I argue that this should be pursued last as it will need funding, maintenance, and staff.
Harpreet might be coming to INCOB where we will be discussing how to build regional communities.* So this goal may end up moving faster than I expect it to.
And, as always I have typed too much.
Cheers everyone, Dave C
* Out breakout proposal was approved by INCOB. We may very well succeed in starting an international regional community at INCOB.