Hackathon

What is a hackathon?

In the context of ImageJ, a hackathon is a coding spree, or if you want, a one or two-week brainstorm session where scientists with programming skills sit together and work in a low-distraction, high-energy environment to advance the software side of their research. Typically, results get accomplished much faster (read: days instead of weeks or months) than without hackathons, because the setting is ideal to discuss advanced ideas with similar-thinking scientists and ideas can sprout much faster. Sometimes, results are achieved that would not have been possible without a hackathon at all.

**The "hackathon effect" in effect!**

Why?

First and foremost, hackathons are fun. The participants like what they are working on, and rarely have the same opportunities to talk to and inspire each other about their ongoing research.

Also, hackathons are the perfect excuse to concentrate on a particular subject without distractions. A lot gets done at a hackathon (see right!).

Origin of the term hackathon

The term comes from the original meaning of hack, i.e. a clever and unforeseen way to use or improve a technical system.

It is not clear whether Sun’s marketing team or OpenBSD were first, combining the words hack and marathon to form hackathon.

Ever since, OpenBSD held annual hackathons during which OpenBSD was improved in leaps and bounds.

In 2007, the first hackathon revolving around neuro-science was taking place at HHMI Janelia Research Campus. In a sense, it can be seen as the first Fiji hackathon, since Fiji was born in the wake of that hackathon, and probably would not have happened without it.

ImageJ hackathons

ImageJ has benefitted from many hackathons over the years:

When	Where	Who	Topic
ImageJ Hackathons
2007 Summer	HHMI Janelia Ashburn, VA, USA	Albert Cardona bene51 jefferis Hanchuan Peng Johannes Schindelin Stephan Preibisch Stephan Saalfeld rasband Arnim Jenett Julie Simpson Torsten Rohlfing Yuriy Mishchenko	Neuroscience
2008 Apr 21 - 2008 Apr 30	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	Albert Cardona bene51 Cornelius Sicker Daniel James White frederikfly Jean-Yves Tinevez Johannes Schindelin Mark Hiner Stephan Preibisch Stephan Saalfeld Pavel Tomancak	Fiji
2008 Dec 8 - 2008 Dec 13	INI Zürich, Switzerland	?	Fiji
2009 Mar 23 - 2009 Apr 03	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	Johannes Schindelin Albert Cardona Jean-Yves Tinevez bene51 Ignacio Arganda-Carreras Daniel James White Mark Hiner Pavel Tomancak Stephan Preibisch Stephan Saalfeld Raju Tomer Misha Kudryashev	Segmentation
2010 Mar 14 - 2010 Mar 27	EMBL Heidelberg, Germany	Albert Cardona Stephan Saalfeld bene51 cmci Curtis Rueden Johannes Schindelin Ignacio Arganda-Carreras Larry Lindsey Mark Hiner Stephan Preibisch Grant Harris vkaynig	Fiji
2010 Oct 12 - 2010 Oct 23	LBNL Berkeley CA, USA	frederikfly Johannes Schindelin	Running Micro-Manager inside Fiji
2011 Jan 27 - 2011 Feb 13	WID Madison, WI, USA	Ignacio Arganda-Carreras Paul Barber Albert Cardona Barry DeZonia Arthur Edelstein Adam Fraser frederikfly Aivar Grislis Grant Harris hinerm Luis Ibanez LeeKamentsky Larry Lindsey Melissa Linkert Mark Hiner Tobias Pietzsch Stephan Preibisch Curtis Rueden Stephan Saalfeld Johannes Schindelin bene51 Pavel Tomancak Kevin Eliceiri Rick Lentz Mark Rowley	Multidimensional visualization
2011 Dec 9 - 2011 Dec 19	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	jburel Stephane Dallongeville Barry DeZonia Christian Dietz Michael Doube Fabrice de Chaumont frederikfly Martin Horn Daniel James White tomka alex-krull Melissa Linkert Mark Hiner Moore Tobias Pietzsch Stephan Preibisch Curtis Rueden Johannes Schindelin bene51 Pavel Tomancak Peter Gabriel Pitrone Kevin Eliceiri Fernando Carrilo, Jiri Matas, Jurgen Mayer	Interoperability
2012 Oct	Universität Konstanz Konstanz, Germany	Martin Horn Christian Dietz Tobias Pietzsch Johannes Schindelin	KNIME+Fiji
2013 Jan 22 - 2013 Jan 25	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	thewtex Curtis Rueden Johannes Schindelin hinerm	SCIFIO ImageIO plugin
2013 Apr 14 - 2013 Apr 18	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Ignacio Arganda-Carreras Johannes Schindelin Curtis Rueden	Trainable Weka Segmentation
2013 Apr 27 - 2013 May 3	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Stephan Preibisch Tobias Pietzsch Curtis Rueden Johannes Schindelin Barry DeZonia hinerm Aivar Grislis	ImgLib2
2013 Sep 9 - 2013 Sep 13	Institut Pasteur Paris France	Tobias Pietzsch Jean-Yves Tinevez	MaMuT, BigDataViewer
2013 Nov 14 - 2013 Nov 27	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Christian Dietz Johannes Schindelin Curtis Rueden	KNIME+ImageJ
2014 Mar 4 - 2014 Mar 13	Universität Konstanz Konstanz, Germany	Curtis Rueden Johannes Schindelin Christian Dietz Martin Horn	ImageJ Ops \|- valign="top" \|
2014 Mar 20 - 2014 Mar 21	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	jburel Peter Walczysko Curtis Rueden	ImageJ-OMERO
2014 Jul 7 - 2014 Jul 10	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Mark Tsuchida Chris Weisiger Johannes Schindelin stuyvenberg Curtis Rueden hinerm	Micro-Manager and OpenSPIM
2014 Sep 14 - 2014 Sep 18	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Christian Dietz bnorthan hinerm Curtis Rueden apal4 Yuming Liu Alison Walter Ginger Pocock	ImageJ Ops + KNIME
2014 Oct 13 - 2014 Oct 17	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Tobias Pietzsch Stephan Preibisch Stephan Saalfeld Johannes Schindelin Curtis Rueden hinerm	ImgLib2
2015 Jan 19 - 2015 Jan 27	FREIRÄUME Konstanz, Germany	Christian Dietz Curtis Rueden hinerm LeeKamentsky Tobias Pietzsch Florian Jug Johannes Schindelin Ignacio Arganda-Carreras gab1one Daniel Seebacher kmader Andreas Graumann Jonathan Hale tibuch Patrick Winter Andreas Burger Tobias Kötter	ImageJ Ops + KNIME + CellProfiler + more
2015 Apr 12 - 2015 Apr 17	HHMI Janelia Ashburn, VA, USA	Stephan Preibisch Tobias Pietzsch Stephan Saalfeld Pavel Tomancak	Multiview-Reconstruction and BigDataViewer
2015 June 29 - 2015 July 3	BIMSB/MDC Berlin, Germany	Stephan Preibisch Christian Dietz Mario Emmenlauer Stephan Janosch	Parallelization of Multiview-Reconstruction and integration with ImageJ Ops & KNIME
2015 Jul 27 - 2015 Jul 31	HHMI Janelia Ashburn, VA, USA	Stephan Saalfeld Curtis Rueden hinerm Tobias Pietzsch tomka Burkhard Höckendorf Fernando Amat Phillip Keller	SCIFIO performance and generality
2015 Sep 05 - 2015 Sep 15	WID + LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Curtis Rueden hinerm Christian Dietz Tobias Pietzsch Stephan Saalfeld bnorthan Florian Jug thewtex Jay Warrick Tiago Ferreira biovoxxel etarena Alison Walter LeonYang5114 Yuming Liu Guneet Singh Mehta Marcel Austenfeld Karl Bellve Alex Rigano Pariksheet Nanda Mark Tsuchida Chris Weisiger	ImageJ2 Learnathon + ImageJ Ops
2016 Jan 12 - 2016 Jan 22	KNIME Konstanz Regional Office Konstanz, Germany	Christian Dietz Curtis Rueden Mark Hiner Martin Horn Tobias Pietzsch Florian Jug Loic Royer skalarproduktraum Robert Haase Stefan Helfrich kmader Kyle Harrington Jan Eglinger Thomas Re tibuch Jonathan Hale Daniel Seebacher Patrick Winter Alexander Fillbrunn Nico Hoffmann Timo Sachsenberg Julianus Pfeuffer Temesgen H. Dadi	KNIME Image Processing
2016 Jun 19 - 2016 Jun 28	HHMI Janelia Ashburn, VA, USA	Stephan Saalfeld Tobias Pietzsch Curtis Rueden Christian Dietz Kyle Harrington	Metadata rich images
2016 Jul 5 - 2016 Jul 14	KNIME Konstanz Regional Office Konstanz, Germany	Christian Dietz Patrick Winter Tobias Pietzsch skalarproduktraum Curtis Rueden Martin Horn Stefan Helfrich Kyle Harrington Richard Domander kmader Andreas Burger Marcel Wiedenmann Simon Schmid Joshy Cyriac Jonathan Hale Alexander Fillbrunn Jan Eglinger tibuch Stefano Woerner Cyril Mongis hoerldavid Nico Hoffmann	KNIME Image Processing + 3D viz
2016 Dec 6 - 2016 Dec 16	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	Florian Jug Tobias Pietzsch Pavel Tomancak Curtis Rueden Stephan Saalfeld hanslovsky kephale rimadoma tinevez dietzc Patrick Winter skalarproduktraum Loic Royer Robert Haase hkmoon tibuch Marcel Wiedenmann hoerldavid milkyklim maarzt Vladimír Ulman Carsten Haubold Jonas Massa	Fiji & KNIP
2017 Feb 21 - 2017 Feb 26	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Tobias Pietzsch Stephan Saalfeld Christian Dietz Curtis Rueden Alison Walter	ImgLib2
2017 Jun 7 - 2017 Jun 14	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	dietzc Curtis Rueden	ImageJ Ops
2017 Sep 20 - 2017 Sep 29	KNIME Konstanz Regional Office Konstanz, Germany	dietzc maarzt tibuch imagejan gab1one Alexander Fillbrunn Jon Fuller Jonathan Hale Carsten Haubold stelfrich Martin Horn fjug David Kolb milkyklim kmader Julianus Pfeuffer tpietzsch Mangal Prakash StephanPreibisch Jonas Probst René Rahn ctrueden Simon Schmid Deborah Schmidt Vladimír Ulman Marcel Wiedenmann Benjamin Wilhelm Patrick Winter	KNIME Image Processing, ImageJ Ops, Ilastik
2017 Oct 17 - 2017 Oct 18	UConn Health Farmington, CT, USA	jcschaff Curtis Rueden	Virtual Cell + ImageJ
2017 Dec 4 - 2017 Dec 15	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	Florian Jug Tobias Pietzsch Pavel Tomancak Curtis Rueden hanslovsky kephale rimadoma tinevez dietzc skalarproduktraum Loic Royer Robert Haase hkmoon tibuch Marcel Wiedenmann hoerldavid milkyklim maarzt Vladimír Ulman Carsten Haubold Pbainar Alison Walter	Fiji & KNIP
2018 Apr 22 - 2018 May 2	University of Idaho Moscow, ID, USA	Kyle Harrington Stephan Saalfeld Christian Dietz Curtis Rueden Matthias Arzt Tobias Pietzsch Loic Royer Brian Northan skalarproduktraum Mark Tsuchida Robert Wiese	SciView
2018 May 16 - 2018 May 18	Galvanize San Francisco, CA, USA	Dan Toloudis (AICS) Dyche Mullins (UCSF) Lisa Harrylock (AICS) Tom Goddard (UCSF) Molly Maleckar (AICS) Tom Ferrin (UCSF) Graham Johnson (AICS) Samuel Lord (UCSF/HHMI) Basu Chaudhuri (AICS) Ambrose Carr (CZI) Megan Riel-Megan (AICS) Jeremy Freeman (CZI) Dave Williams (AICS) Nicholas Sofroniew (CZI) <a class="person" href="https://github.com/Curtis Rueden ">Curtis Rueden </a> Arne Bakker (CZI) Syuan-Ming Guo (CZ Biohub) Andréa Clavijo (CZI) Deep Ganguli (CZI) Shalin Mehta (CZ Biohub) Tony Tung (CZI) Sarah Kefayati (CZ Biohub) Anitha Krishnan (CZ Biohub) <a class="person" href="https://github.com/Allen Goodman ">Allen Goodman </a> Norah Klintberg (CZ Biohub) Eric Perlman (Johns Hopkins) Oana Carja (CZ Biohub) Benny Lin (U Texas Austin) Jeremy Maitlen-Shephard (Google)	Bioimage Analysis in JavaScript, Python + Java
2018 Oct 31 - 2018 Nov 06	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	Christian Dietz Tobias Pietzsch Mark Tsuchida Curtis Rueden	ImgLib2, Micro-Manager
2018 Dec 09 - 2018 Dec 14	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	Curtis Rueden Carsten Haubold Christian Dietz gab1one Benjamin Wilhelm Marcel Wiedenmann maarzt Deborah Schmidt Tobias Pietzsch skalarproduktraum Gabriella Turek	Hacking
2019 Jan 17 - 2019 Jan 29	IT4Innovations Ostrava, Czech Republic	Florian Jug Tobias Pietzsch Pavel Tomancak dietzc tibuch Marcel Wiedenmann maarzt Vladimír Ulman Pbainar Alison Walter gab1one David Kolb Mangal Prakash Deborah Schmidt Benjamin Wilhelm John Bogovic Nicolas Chiaruttini Jana Klímová Jan Kožusznik Michal Krumnikl Manan Lalit Emil Melnikov Pavel Moravec Václav Svatoň Christian Tischer Gabriella Turek Tomas Vicar Marwan Zouinkhi	Parallelization and HPC
2019 Sep 18 - 2019 Sep 24	KNIME Konstanz Regional Office Konstanz, Germany	Michael Crusoe Stefan Verhoeven ctrueden dietzc tpietzsch Marcel Wiedenmann Daniel Bogenrieder Deborah Schmidt Benjamin Wilhelm Adrian Nembach Laurent Thomas Kefang Ding frankprotopapa Christian Albrecht gab1one David Kolb	KNIME
2019 Dec 9 - 2019 Dec 18	CSB Dresden Dresden, Germany	hanslovsky ctrueden tpietzsch skalarproduktraum tibuch fjug thewtex stelfrich haesleinhuepf Marcel Wiedenmann Emil Nelnikov Wei Ouyang Vladimír Ulman tomancak Uwe Schmidt Deborah Schmidt Benjamin Wilhelm Nicolas Chiaruttini Mangal Prakash Maksim Novikov Christian Tischer Manan Lalit Bob Hanson Adrian Wolny Gabriella Turek Tomas Vicar David Ackerman Lars Grüter Mats Moskopp Arrate Muñoz Barrutia	Python+Fiji
2020 Aug 10 - 2020 Aug 21	IT4Innovations Ostrava, Czech Republic	Florian Jug Pavel Tomancak Jan Kožusznik Michal Krumnikl Pavel Moravec Václav Svatoň	Parallel Macro/Scripts and OpenMPI Plugins