Bioconductor in Africa: Ethiopia’s first face-to-face course | R bloggers

Introduction

After the success of our first in-person meeting Bioconductor course in Nairobi Earlier this year, we continued to build momentum across the continent with Ethiopia’s first Bioconductor Workshop, held in Addis Ababa from August 25 to 29, 2025. Organized by the Bio and Emerging Technology Institute (BETin) in collaboration with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the University of Limerickthe event brought together researchers, students and teachers to support and increase bioinformatics capacity in Ethiopia.

What we learned

A five-day, practice-oriented program with:

• R for data management, manipulation, visualization and reproducible analysis
• Core data structures of bioconductors (e.g SummarizedExperiment)
• Exploratory data analysis and quality control
• Differential expression with DESeq2
• Gene set enrichment analysis

Agenda and instructor list are on the website workshop page.

We welcomed 26 participants from universities, national research institutes and biotech groups across Ethiopia, reflecting a strong mix of MSc/PhD students, teachers and researchers working in agriculture, public health, genomics and AI-driven biomedical research. The cohort was selected from more than 170 applicants – a clear sign of the growing demand for hands-on bioinformatics training.

Participant votes

Snapshot of the impact:
From the post-course survey (n=24):

• 100% would recommend the workshop
• 92% rated the course as “Excellent” or “Very Good”
• Average self-reported improvement in R skills: 4.3/5
• 23 out of 24 respondents expressed interest in helping the Bioconductor Africa community grow

“It’s very practical and engaging… The instructors were very experienced, knowledgeable and approachable. It was a great learning experience!”

“There were plenty of supporters for the trainees; those who walked around and supported us when we got stuck was a wonderful approach. The training hits the target from my side.”

“I would appreciate it if the time for training could be increased.”

These sentiments echoed the hosts’ reflections:

“The participants were thrilled to have the opportunity and committed to using the new skills they acquired in their research and future careers.” — Dr. Zewdu Edea (Betin),, LinkedIn

“The workshop highlights the importance of international cooperation and knowledge exchange in advancing research and training, especially in the African context.” — Touch me, Kelile Lema (BETin), LinkedIn

Encouragingly, many respondents showed interest in helping the Bioconductor Africa community grow through education, webinars or community sessions – a strong signal for sustainable, local leadership.

Lessons learned

An important part of building a sustainable training program is listening to feedback. A number of themes stood out:

• More time for deeper dives:
  The participants wanted extra time to practice and discover. While it is not always possible to extend the main workshop, we are exploring optional drop-in coding sessions or ‘hacky hours’ after future events so that participants can spend more time working through exercises with instructor support.

• Clearer signage of pre-workshop reading: Although we shared the reading and background material, some participants noted that they would have benefited from more emphasis on the publication describing the experimental data set. We will highlight these sources more clearly in future courses.

• Mapping future topics: The feedback covered a range of topics that people would like to see next, including GWAS, single-cell analysis and multi-omics integration. This helps us map future workshops and tailor training to local research priorities.

Highlights

A short certificate presentation on the last day was a nice end to the week. BETin presented each participant with a certificate in recognition of their dedication and commitment during the course. The participants were happy to receive them, as evidenced by their smiles during the ceremony.

Participants receive their course certificate.

Another note from the week is that two of the local instructors, Yohannes and Niguse, were completing their Carpentries Instructor certification, and this workshop served as their final teaching settlement.

Yohannes’ story of how he and Niguse became certified carpentry instructors. LinkedIn

Contributors and Acknowledgments

This workshop was organized and funded by the Bio and Emerging Technology Institute (BETin). We are very grateful for their leadership and commitment to strengthening bioinformatics capacity in Ethiopia.

The event was organized in partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the University of Limerick, with additional support from Bioconductor (CZI EOSS) and UL Global/Erasmus+.

Our instructor team: Dr. Yohannes Gedamu Gebre (Betin), Niguse Kelile Lema (Betin), Dr. Helen Nigussie (AAU), Trushar Shah (Ita), Dr. Maria Doyle (ul).

We thank the Ministry of Innovation and Technology And Innobiz-K Ethiopia incubation center for generously making their facilities available for the training.

What’s next?

Our next workshop took place in West Africa, in Benin, from November 17 to 21, 2025. If your institution is interested in co-hosting or contributing to future workshops, we would love to hear from you.

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