bioinformatics

Can Uber for Bioinformatics?

We believe that everyone should be empowered to move freely and safely—physically, economically, and socially. ― Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp

Uber, a milestone for sharing economics, is known for delivering food (UberEats), ridesharing (UberPool), and ride-hailing (UberX) etc. Riders are attracted by the cash-free, transparent waiting time and fares. Drivers are addicted into a dynamic pricing model based on the local supply and demand at the time of driving, i.e., the surging price, certain times boost per trip, or other promotions. Besides, Uber is renowned for the reciprocal credit rating system. Riders and drivers could rate each other and leave feedback per trip. This matters a lot for the next ride or drive, especially in certain cities which block low rated riders and drivers on Uber.

Although there are many good things about Uber, this does not rule out its negative counterparts, such as passenger safety, racism, gender equality. However, as the title stands, I care more about the inspiration from its operating model.

With the development of sequencing technologies, Bioinformatics as A Career has been everywhere. There is a great need for the bioinformatics questions or requests to be asked and answered. Although there are Bioinformatics Q&A platforms available to conveniently search or post questions, such as BioStars (https://www.biostars.org), SeqAnswers (http://seqanswers.com), and Bioinformatics StackExchange (https://bioinformatics.stackexchange.com). The relevant answers are usually evaluated/rated by the broad community, therefor your specific questions cannot be guaranteed, and it might take days or weeks to hear the reply. This is mostly due to no effective rewarding model to address your questions from the bioinformatician community. In another words, learning from Uber provides a solution to tackle the questioners’ concerns, i.e., the balance between the waited time and guaranteed result. You might argue Uber paying the drivers for tips and fares. What can “bioinformactian driver” get? There are many ways to earn credits/bonus for answering questions, which even can be used to prove the ability for job market. Anyway, there are definitely a lot of interesting sparkles when speaking of Uber for Bioinformatics.

Can you imagine one day your bioinformatics abilities were tipped because of you finished a question order?