This post has been written by our valued community members.
Over the past year, we, Firas Zemzem and Houcemeddine Othman as Nextflow Ambassadors, embarked on an inspiring journey to empower the next Tunisian generation of bioinformaticians and more across Africa - through the power of Nextflow.
What began as a volunteer initiative has evolved into a continental movement building skills, community, and collaboration around reproducible science. Through open sessions, workshops, and international conferences, we have been laying the foundation for what we proudly call Paving for the NEXT Nextflow Tunisian Community WHY NOT the future Ambassador.
By sharing knowledge, fostering mentorship, and connecting innovators, we tried to make advanced training accessible to researchers, hence shaping a community which will be capable of sustaining Africa’s growing presence in global genomics and bioinformatics.
Open Sessions: Sparking the Nextflow Conversation
It all began with an open session on Nextflow, inviting students, early-career researchers, and professionals. The session served as an introduction to the fundamentals of workflow management, highlighting how Nextflow supports reproducibility, scalability, and collaborative data analysis.
The turnout was overwhelming. Attendees engaged in thoughtful discussions, exchanged experiences, and expressed a shared desire to implement reproducible workflows in their local research environments.
After setting the context and framing the importance of Nextflow, we noticed a strong enthusiasm and demand for a hands-on, practical workshop, a clear sign that participants wanted to move from theory to real-world application.
Representing Nextflow on the Scientific Stage
Our mission continued at several regional and international events, where we proudly represented the Nextflow community and showcased Africa’s growing innovation in bioinformatics.
Tunisian Society of Human Genomics - TSHG 2024
At the Tunisian Society of Human Genomics - TSHG 2024, Dr. Houcemeddine Othman presented DelMoro: a Nextflow pipeline for variant calling and streamlined reporting in clinical genomics. The DelMoro pipeline exhibited a framework to bridge the gap between reproducibility and workflow flexibility, highlighting new ways to enhance reproducible research across various data environments.
Tunisian Bioinformatics Conference 2025
Later, at the 1st Tunisian Bioinformatics Conference 2025, as a PhD candidate, I delivered an oral presentation on DelMoro, and earned the Best Oral Presentation Award for the Medical genomics and pharmacogenomics session. This recognition was not just a personal achievement but a celebration of collaborative work, demonstrating how African researchers are actively contributing to global open science movements, applying FAIR principles.
Hands-On Learning: The IPT Workshop with the African BioGenome Project
Encouraged by the success of our open session, we were honored to receive an invitation from the African BioGenome Project (AfricaBP) to lead a hands-on Nextflow workshop at the Institut Pasteur de Tunis (IPT). This new step was marked as a pivotal step forward, moving from awareness to practical application.
The “Reproducibility Crisis in OMICS Analysis” talk sparked a deep discussion emphasizing the importance of avoiding reproducing the reproducibility crisis. During the hands-on sessions, participants learned to build, run, and optimize Nextflow pipelines while exploring best practices for sharing workflows.
The workshop was highly engaging, with participants working in diverse groups to develop real collaborative projects, where they shared insights and addressed challenges collectively, and successfully executed their first Nextflow pipelines. We also introduced nf-core pipelines, enabling participants to explore standardized, community-driven workflows that demonstrate best practices in reproducible bioinformatics.
We were particularly impressed by the level of engagement, collaboration, and the exchange of innovative ideas, which reflected a strong commitment to teamwork and shared learning throughout the workshop.
Building a Sustainable Nextflow Community
As our network continues to expand, we are focusing on sustainability developing Nextflow Ambassador initiatives that promote mentorship, cross-institutional training, and community-driven collaboration. This ambassadorship was the heart of our mission to inspire lab members and researchers and to encourage them to adopt reproducible workflows in their daily research.
We envision a future where every African bioinformatician has access to tools, training, and a supportive community to carry forward the principles of open and reproducible science. In fact, the open session and the conference attendance were more than first stepping stones to a more connected, innovative, and self-sustaining research ecosystem in Tunisia.
Looking Ahead: The Flow Continues
With each collaboration and effort to support researchers, the Bioinformatics African Community continues to grow stronger. By embracing open-source tools and fostering a culture of sharing knowledge, we can collectively shape a future where transparency, reproducibility, and collaboration drive scientific innovation across the continent. Together, these principles form the foundation of our vision for a connected and empowered African bioinformatics community.
This post was contributed by a Nextflow Ambassador. Ambassadors are passionate individuals who support the Nextflow community. Interested in becoming an ambassador? Read more about it here.