Introduction

Hello,
my name is Dr. Nandor Poka. I am originally from Hungary, currently living and working in Stuttgart, Germany. I started programming at around the age of 10 in BASIC, followed by Delphi, but eventually I became a Biologist. Since my love for computers and programming never went away, I did a Software Engineering MSc, while working on my PhD in Molecular Biology that had Bioinformatics in it.

I decided to learn programming professionally because:

• deep down I always wanted to be a programmer
• I also wanted to become a Bioinformatician

I work now as Software Architect at a small German company, doing pure software development (and architecture design, project management etc.), but my interest in Biology and Bio-/Medical Informatics stayed with me. That is why, I have started coding on projects, and launched a service that could be useful in these areas.

My work

My main project is the (Bio)Data Hub Project. An online, public Jupyter Hub that provides a custom built docker image with a Jupyter Lab environment inside. This environment has many pre-installed packages that are useful for Bioinformatics / Computational Biology. I also provide custom Jupyter Lab extensions and packages that add valute to this environment (eg. Notebook / widget based UI for EMBL online services).

I've also started on a visualization library for Bioinformatics for Python, but is in very early stage. This repository also includes work from a BSc diploma project from a student I mentor / supervise.

Because I find sharing knowledge utmost important (and love to teach / present), I've also founded a meetup group (ComBINeS - Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Network Stuttgart) to bring the people IT and Biology (Medical) world closer.
I've also created a meetup group for Chatbots (Chatbots - Stuttgart) since I find the idea interesting.

How your sponsoring helps

Currently I pay for all operational costs for my online service and meetup groups, form my private income from my job.

By sponsoring me, you contribute to the operational costs of the Data Hub Project (server rent, data storage rent, renting additional resources, domain name fee etc.) and the meetup groups (host subscription fee, refreshments for a physical meeting etc.). This the main area I'd like to use the funds for.

The next step for using sponsoring funds is to share it with developers who make major contribution(s) to these project(s).

I hope you find these goals worthy of sponsoring.

Best wishes,
Dr. Nandor Poka