BioVault.net ADW 2025 CODATA: SyftBox: a General Purpose Solution for Data Visitation and Equitable Data Sharing

SyftBox: a General Purpose Solution for Data Visitation and Equitable Data Sharing

1. Lightning Talk SyftBox: a General Purpose Solution for Data Visitation and Equitable Data Sharing

2. Madhava Jay 🧬 Rare Disease Patient Software Engineer @ OpenMined 🚀 Help solve data access with open source 🌏 Brisbane, Australia 📧 [email protected]

3. Mission Building the public network for non-public information

4. Founded in 2017 Tech Nonprofit and 501(c)(3) We build open-source privacy-preserving technologies > 30 Team Members > 230 GitHub Repos ~ 20k Slack Community

5. This lightning talk 1. Problems with data sharing 2. A general purpose solution 3. A use-case for equitable genomics

6. Data’s true power comes from collaboration. But many data owners are forced to choose between giving up data ownership through copying and centralization, or simply not participating. Due to legal and ethical constraints, copying data across borders is often unacceptable; resulting in no action. We need a new way to collaborate fairly and securely. The Motivating Problem

7. Remotely study data on a computer at another organisation Data Scientist Datasite Can answer a “specific” question …and only that question Retains governance over the information they steward …and never shares a copy of the data Data Visitation

8. Data Scientist Datasite Datasite Datasite FL Project FL Project FL Project Datasite FL Project Federated Learning Federated Learning

9. SyftBox.net An open-source, privacy-first, decentralized network for secure data collaboration

10. The SyftBox Platform Apache 2.0 Open-source End-to-end encrypted Permissionless network Supports any data format Runs any program or code Enables federated analysis across multiple datasites Low latency and large file transfer support

11. Try it out! https://github.com/OpenMined/syftbox

12. BioVault.net A free, open-source, permissionless network for collaborative genomics Built on SyftBox

13. Problems with equitable genomics and data sharing Genomic data is private and very sensitive Researchers face lengthy requests and institutional reviews Difficulties sharing data across datasites due to different policies Participants lack transparency on how their data is used Many communities, especially in the Global South, lack expertise and resources to analyze their own data Unequal and inequitable benefit sharing between haves and have nots

14. Our solution - data visitation for genomics We allow data owners to make their data available for remote analysis without uploading or exposing the raw data Because we’re built on SyftBox and Nextflow, researchers can easily run arbitrary analysis and complex data pipelines

15. Video Slide Demo https://youtu.be/6PJxS9Z030Q

16. Dr Carika Weldon (Bermuda) Founder of CariGenetics Pilot Programmes BioVault is enabling researchers in the Global South, to participate in genomics and derive equitable benefits from their data We are also partnering with Human Genome Project II to help deliver infrastructure and capacity building in genomics Dr Rana Dajani (Jordan) Professor at Hashemite University

17. Looking for partners and pilots We are on a mission to deliver equitable access to data We have resources to help solve your data access problems Contact us to learn more: [email protected]