Post-NCBC-2014

Introduction

NAMIC, the National Alliance for Medical Image Computing, was funded by NIH as part of the NCBC program. NIH's intention was to build a computational infrastructure to support biomedical research. The program was designed with a mandatory sunset after 10 years. For NA-MIC, this deadline has been reached in June of 2014. In addition to important progress in algorithmic research NAMIC produced a computational platform for medical image computing, called the NAMIC kit. NAMIC resulted in the creation of a community of algorithm researchers, biomedical scientists and software engineers using the NAMIC kit.

Project Week is a semi-annual event which draws approximately 100 researchers to work collaboratively on open-science solutions for problems that lie on the interfaces of the fields of computer science, mechanical engineering, biomedical engineering, and medicine. In contrast to conventional conferences and workshops the primary focus of the Project Weeks is to make progress in projects (as opposed to reporting about progress). The objective of the Project Weeks is to provide a venue for this community of medical open source software creators. Project Weeks are open to all, are publicly advertised, and are funded through fees paid by the attendees. Participants are encouraged to stay for the entire event.

In addition to the ongoing working sessions, breakout sessions are organized ad-ho on a variety of topics. These topics include: discussions of software architecture, presentations of new features and approaches and topics such as IGT in neuro.

Plans Past June of 2014

Given the vibrant community present at Project Weeks, we intend to continue to organize the events every 6 months. Several funded projects use the Project Week as a place to convene and collaborate. These include NAC, NCIGT, QIICR, OCAIRO. We intend to continue the tradition of openness and accessibility for Project Week. The next events in this ongoing series will occur in Salt Lake City, Utah in January of 2015, followed by one in Boston, MA in June of 2015.

Relevance to MICCAI

Project week brings together scientists and engineers in the field of Medical Image Computing, both investigating novel methodologies and using tools based on those methods for biomedical research. While highly relevant to the MICCAI community, the activities during Project Week are complementary to other activities endorsed or sponsored by MICCAI. Endorsment by the MICCAI society will also make the relation between NAMIC and MICCAI explicit and will prevent confusion in that regard.

Plan of Action

We intend to approach the MICCAI society and to apply for an Endorsement of Project Week. For rules, see here.

Comments

Jim: In reference to the rules for MICCAI endorsement, here are some thoughts on information we can add:

1. . Organizers - I presume that Tina will continue to herd the cats
2. . History - we just completed the 19th Project Week. We can include more "by the numbers" information. Also, things like having special interest sessions led by people outside of NAMIC.
3. . Project Week activities. Everyone shows up with a project. Some people are working on the platform. Some people are developing algorithms. Some people are applying the tools to their research problems. Breakout sessions on special topics. We begin the week introducing projects and connecting teams. We end the week reporting progress.
4. . We should consider/describe how we may change the project weeks from a NAMIC Kit focus to including other open source platforms. These could be adjacencies to the NAMIC Kit, platforms that share pieces of the NAMIC Kit, or perhaps even new ways of doing things.