The neuroimaging industry goes open - My experience in ODINE

ODINE promotes the use of Open data

Mint Labs completed the ODINE (Open Data Incubator Europe) program, a startup acceleration program with €100,000 grant to promote the use of open data. (Ref: Mapping the brain with open data). Open data can be freely used and redistributed by anyone. There are many examples of open data, such as geography, public transformation, corporate registration and so on. The data is beneficial for scientists and companies to get detailed insights. Also, the data becomes transparent because the data owner and users are careful to keep the data quality, security and privacy.

Reference: Pixabay

Big data in Neuroscience

As Marc Andreessen famously said that “software is eating the world.”, I would say “Big data is eating the Neuroimaging industry”. IBM researchers estimate that medical images account for 90% of all medical data and they are the largest and fastest-growing data source in the healthcare industry. (Ref: IBM Unveils Watson-Powered Imaging Solutions at RSNA) The research on mining the medical data to get a better diagnosis or find a biomarker for brain disease has been a hot topic in the Neuroimaging industry.

A lot of Neuroimaging data has been shared publicly

A lot of Neuroimaging datasets are published to the scientific community as Open data including Human connectome project, ADNI, ADHD-200 among others. There are some reasons for this trend. First, Neuroimaging studies need a huge cost because MRI machines need a huge budget to install and maintain and patient selections are very difficult for a specific stage of brain diseases. The acquired medical images are quite beneficial for scientists. Second, openly shared data tend to be more accurate and have more statistical power. (Ref: A Practical Guide for Improving Transparency and Reproducibility in Neuroimaging Research). It improves reproducibility of Neuroimaging researches.

Workflow creates additional value compared to original data source

The ODINE program was a great opportunity to encourage us to work on Open data. My personal favourite activity was an interview with other matured Open data companies from different industries; Unigraph, Viomedo and OpenCorporates, . We learned from them about how to aggregate data and how to build their business. The most critical part of their business model is “added value” to users. The value added features include workflow, user interface and visualization, which drive users to visit their services rather than original Open data sources.

After completing the ODINE program, we continue to build our Open data business model by collecting more Open data and develop more features to take advantage the massive amount of Neuroimaging data. I am excited about showing it to the community soon.