COVID-19 Open-Source Help Desk

The COVID-19 global pandemic is an incredible challenge to our society. Lives are lost and many millions suffer long-lasting consequences as medical facilities are overwhelmed, societies shut down, and populations are confined or quarantined. In the fight against this rapidly spreading virus, time is of the essence. A few days gained towards a vaccine or a treatment make a huge difference.

We are expert users, developers, maintainers and community leaders of major open source scientific computing software packages used across scientific fields, and we want to help you!

If you are a virologist, epidemiologist, or a researcher working on a cure, and you make use of open-source scientific computing software, we would like to help you use your time most effectively. Do you struggle with setting up software, getting the right command in your analysis pipeline, or plotting exactly the information you need? Do you struggle with large amounts of data? Is there a bug or feature that you need in your open-source software stack that would make a big difference if it were resolved? Are you frustrated trying to learn how to build interactive dashboards to communicate results? Do you feel like you are wasting your time on tedious software issues, and if you just could reach out to an expert in scientific software, you could use your time much better?

This is the raison-d'être of the COVID-19 OSS HELPDESK, a fast-track "stack overflow" where you can get answers from the very people who wrote the software that you use or who are experts in its use!

Who is this for?

If you are one of the people in the world working on a treatment, a vaccine, or studying the epidemic professionally, and you need help with an open-source package, this forum is for you! We want to make your job easier right now, so you can use your time more effectively to fight this virus.

If you are not a professional researcher or engineer working on COVID-19, but you are merely interested in the subject, this is great, but please use the normal channels to get help!

If you are a developer or a scientific computing expert willing to help by answering the posts of the domain experts, please come and help!

We strive to make this community as welcoming and inclusive as possible. Please read our Code of Conduct.

Signees (Alphabetical order)