Hackathons, Interoperability, Phylogenetics (HIP), a new NESCent working group, envision the future as a virtual phyloinformatics bazaar in which comparative data and phylogenies are saved, shared, annotated, liked, re-used, aggregated, mashed up, and linked in.  In pursuit of this vision, the working group will stage a series of hackathons (intensive participant-driven code-development meetings) that empower early-career scientists to build the links of an emerging network of interoperable evolutionary resources. 

The HIP proposal (with my collaborators Enrico Pontelli and Rutger Vos) was funded early this year.  In the fall we recruited an awesome 10-member Leadership Team that will giude the project over the next two years.  Currently the team is having monthly teleconference, leading up to a face-to-face meeting at NESCent in mid-January, 2012, where we will flesh out our Grand Plan and begin organizing our first hackathon, to take place at NESCent. To find out more about the project, go to the HIP wiki (which has the original proposal) or ask Arlin.