End of OLS-1 and OLS-2 Announcement post

We are extremely delighted to announce that leads to 17 projects from our first cohort have graduated from the Open Life Science program. We held 5 separate graduation ceremonies on 17 April, 20 May, and 27 May 2020 in different time zones. In their final presentations, each team/individual member amazed us with the progress they made in their project and the level of dedication and resilience they showed in leading their work, especially during the pandemic.

We congratulate all our proud mentees: Anunya Opasawatchai, Billy Broderick, Bruno Soares, Cassandra Gould Van Praag, Chiara Bertipaglia, Christine Rogers, Danny Colin, David Chentanaman, David Kiragu Mwaura, David LeBauer, Elsa Loissel, Emily Cain, Festus Nyasimi, Jorge Barrios, Kristina Riemer, Lena Karvovskaya, Lilian Juma, Margaret Wanjiku, Matúš Kalaš, Michael Landi, Naraiana Loureiro Benone, Renato Alves, Samuel Guay, Sandy Kawano, Sudarshan GC, Zoe Chervontseva.

We are very grateful to our mentors for setting such a high standard of mentorship that positively impacted the overall success of this cohort. Thank you, Aidan Budd, Andrew Stewart, Björn Grüning, Caleb Kibet, Daniela Saderi, Fotis Psomopoulos, Hao Ye, Holger Dinkel, Katrin Leinweber, Luis Pedro Coelho, Malvika Sharan, Mateusz Kuzak, Naomi Penfold, Patricia Herterich, Renato Alves, Rodrigo Oliveira Campos, Toby Hodges.

Last but not least, thanks to our expert community and speakers for sharing your expertise and personal stories that were educational and inspiring for all of us.

Presentations - recap and common themes

Let us recap it for you - we ran our first cohort from January to May 2020 with 29 mentees, 20 mentors, and over 50 experts from Asian, African, European, Latin American, North American, and Russian countries. Our program introduced our mentees to a great deal of Open Science concepts that are directly applicable to their work. In addition, they also learned all about designing their project for inclusivity, establishing connections with others in the program, managing their communities, and working collaboratively. Through this program, OLS helped design and implement projects to solve technical and cultural questions by collaboratively designing open source software, AI techniques, educational resources, culture movements, and global partnerships in their communities (details).

The final step to graduate Open Life Science is a short presentation about what you worked on. While we originally envisioned this being in April, COVID-19 brought a whole new set of pressures, so we decided to extend the deadlines for final presentations, as well as offering additional timeslots. The result - five calls - can all be viewed on our YouTube channel

Some of the common themes that surprised us and brought us joy during the presentations:

• The COVID-19 pandemic had an unexpected impact of our program beyond the initial goals as our mentees could transfer their OLS skills in other areas like establishing effective communication among the international COVID collaborations, designing the format of their lab meetings online, setting mentor-mentee relationships in their local networks, and connecting folk musicians and artists with each other in Nepal during the lockdown.
• The open canvas exercise was commonly useful for everyone. We presented this in our first cohort call, but a large number of mentees found it so foundational they shared it even 3-4 months later in their presentations.
• Skills like collaborative work culture, self care, ally skills, giving and receiving feedback, agile management, and knowledge dissemination are valuable beyond research.
• Livestreaming and online engagement can make all the difference in helping your friends and family attend important events:

The graduation was even more special because my #VUamsterdam family, @gravana, and @PhDToothFAIRy
were there 😍
AND, my mother watched my graduation in real-time. She had to miss both my wedding and PhD defense. It's the first event in my life abroad that she witnessed 👩‍👧 pic.twitter.com/xWWaJ9kLhw

— Lena Karvovskaya (@LangData) May 21, 2020

Over the next weeks, we will be sharing reports from the individual projects and celebrate our new graduates for their thoughtful work and passion for Open Science!

Announcing OLS-2 - please share with your networks!

Motivated by the overwhelming success of OLS so far, we’re incredibly excited to announce that applications for round 2 of OLS are now officially open! Whether you were excited by OLS-1 but missed the deadline, or whether you’ve heard about it for the first time today, you’re welcome to apply.

• **: Start of the program

• **: End of the program

Questions, comments, looking for more advice? You’re always welcome to email the OLS leadership at team[at]we-are-ols.org- and attend our two pre-application webinars.